Vanessa Vanden Berghe studied for her degree in History of Art at the University of Ghent, Belgium, and her Masters in Architectural History and Theory at the University of East London. At present she is writing up her MPhil on the work of Oliver Hill during the interwar period.

Vanessa has thought at the London Metropolitan University and City University and currently teaches History and Theory of Architecture in year 3 BSc (Hons) and MA Architecture: Interpretation and Theories.

Year 3 BSc (hons) History and Theory module

Vanessa's research interests include investigations surrounding the relationship between British architecture, design and femininity during the inter-war period in Britain

MA Architecture: Interpretation and Theory

Year 3 BSc (hons) History and Theory module

History and Theory

Publications:

Essay in book: 'Oliver Hill: a window on Regionalism in Britain during the interwar period' in Regionalism and modernity during the interwar period (Leen Meganck, ed.) and to be published by KADOC-Artes in 2013.

Conference Papers:

Marketing Modernism: Consumerism in the work of Oliver Hill, CAA Conference, New York, 15 February, 2013

Conference Papers

 Oliver Hill: Exhibiting Modernism, 7 June, 2007, PROGRESS Conference, University of Manchester

 Consumerism in the work of Oliver Hill during the interwar period, 2007,4th Annual AHRA Research Student Symposium, University of East London.

 Drawing from a historical perspective, 2007, The AVA festival of drawing, University of East London

 Alternative Moderns: The Nostalgic in the work of Oliver Hill38th Annual AAH Conference & Bookfair , 2012,The Open University, Milton Keynes.

Member of AHRA

Architecture guide for Archtours.com a travel agency specialized in architecture, city planning and design

Alternative Moderns: The Nostalgic in the Work of Oliver Hill

For many years within architectural history it was argued that there was an inherent dualism between modernism and nostalgia. Nevertheless, in recent years, many scholars have started to question this antipathy along with other oppositional pairings (i.e. modernism/mass market, modernism/regionalism, modernism/decoration, etc.). It is now timely to focus renewed attention on those architects and interior designers of the interwar period, who were hugely popular during their lifetime, but who have been largely neglected in the historiography of modernism.

This paper will contemplate what nostalgia has to offer by way of alternative towards understanding “otherist” projects produced during the twentieth century. Through analysis of some of the designs of the architect Oliver Hill, alternative visions of the future are considered. By exploring designs such as Gayfere house, I will be highlighting how the nostalgic is often located through its relationship with, for instance, the ‘feminine’ and how this carries implications for particular forms of architectural practice. I argue that looking at forms of modernism that are intertwined with a sense of nostalgia and which embrace aspects normally disallowed from doctrinaire modernism provide rich and alternative investigations.

By locating architects such as Hill at the centre of architectural research into British modernism, rather than at the margins, we can shed new light on alternative expressions of modernism.