Dr. Sigrid de Jong

Additional information

Dr. Sigrid de Jong is a senior researcher and lecturer in the history and theory of architecture at the chair of Prof. Dr. Maarten Delbeke, in the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) of ETH Zurich. Her research and teaching focuses on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century architecture and architectural theory, with a special interest in the human responses to buildings and the city, in the public realm, in discourse and design. She is co-leader of the SNSF-funded project ‘Building Identity: Character in Architectural Debate and Design, 1750-1850’ (running from 2022 to 2026), in the frame of which she researches on character and personhood, focusing on female agency in architecture. She is also currently finishing the manuscript of her book and ‘Habilitation’ on Writing, Theorizing, and Designing Architectural Experience in London and Paris (1750-1830).

Sigrid holds a PhD in architectural history and theory from Leiden University (2010), and a Master in architectural history from the University of Amsterdam. She has worked as a curator at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi, now New Institute) in Rotterdam, and as an architectural historian at the architectural office Van Hoogevest Architecten. At Leiden University she was a senior researcher and lecturer in architectural history and theory, conducting a postdoctoral research project (2010-2015) on primitivism and architectural theory (1750-1850) in the context of Maarten Delbeke’s project ‘The Quest for the Legitimacy of Architecture in Europe, 1750-1850’. From 2016 to 2019 she conducted her research project titled ‘Experience and Design: The Emergence of Architectural Experience in Paris and London, 1750-1815’, funded by the talent scheme of NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). At the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO) in Leiden she curated the exhibition Experiencing Paestum (2019).

In 2019-2020 she was awarded a Senior Fellowship from the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London. She is also a recipient of grants from the INHA/Fondation de France, the Paul Mellon Centre and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and was awarded the Research Prize of the Erasmus Prize Foundation for an exceptional PhD dissertation in the humanities and social sciences (2012). She is the author of numerous articles in journals (Architectural Histories, Architectural History, Art History, Dix-Huitième Siècle, The Journal of Architecture, Journal18, Profils) and in monographs (Semper, Labrouste, Soufflot, Bélanger, Ledoux). Her book Rediscovering Architecture: Paestum in Eighteenth-Century Architectural Experience and Theory was published by Yale University Press in 2014. Together with Caroline van Eck she is the editor of the Companion to Eighteenth-Century Architecture (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017). She has presented her work at several international conferences, and most recently co-organised (with Anne Hultzsch and WoWA) the conference Listening In: Conversations on Architectures, Cities and Landscapes 1700-1900, at ETH Zurich (2023).

Selected publications

books

- (co-edited with Caroline van Eck), Companion to Eighteenth-Century Architecture, Companions to the History of Architecture, series editor Harry Mallgrave, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell 2017.

- Rediscovering Architecture: Paestum in Eighteenth-Century Architectural Experience and Theory, London/New Haven: Yale University Press 2014.

articles

- 'Considérer le corps en mouvement: La coupe habitée chez De Wailly et ses contemporains', in Profils, 'Penser en coupe: espace, structure, décor', Jean-Philippe Garric and Estelle Thibault (eds.), 2024, 32-43.

- (co-authored with Maarten Delbeke, Nikos Magouliotis, Dominik Müller), 'Character, or the Anxiety of Appropriateness in Eighteenth-Century Architectural Discourse', Archimaera, 11, 2024, 23-34.

- 'The City and its Significant Other: Lived Urban Histories beyond the Comparative Mode', Journal18, Issue 15 Cities (Spring 2023), Richard Wittman, Katie Scott (eds.).

- 'L’enseignement de l’effet de l’architecture chez Blondel et ses collègues anglais', in: Aurélien Davrius (ed.), Blondel Jacques-François Blondel: La dernière leçon de l’architecture « à la française », Brussels: Mardaga, 2022, 119-135.

- 'Paris in London: John Soane’s Royal Processional Route', in Adrián Fernández Almoguera (ed.), Madrid, sueño y proyectos para una capital: 1800-1833 / Madrid 1800-1833: Ideals and projects for a capital of the time of revolutions, exhibition catalogue, Madrid: Imprenta Municipal - Artes del libro, 2022.

- ‘Le voyage en Angleterre de Bélanger : sensations sublimes et pittoresques’, in Alexia Lebeurre, Claire Ollagnier (ed.), François Joseph Bélanger (1744-1818), Paris, éditions Picard 2021.

- ‘Advancing the Art of Building: Bouwkundige Bijdragen in the Netherlands’, in Anne Hultzsch (ed.), The Journal of Architecture, special issue on Early Architectural Magazines, vol. 25 (2020), 7, 901-923.

- ‘Le progrès vers le primitif: Le mémoire de Labrouste sur Paestum en perspective’, in Jean-Philppe Garric and Marc le Coeur, Le siècle de Labrouste: un élève, un ami, un maître, Paris: Les Éditions des Cendres, 2020, 55-67.

- ‘Experiencing the Gothic Style’, in Mari Hvattum (ed.), On Style, special issue of online journal Architectural Histories, 2019, 7(1): 25, 1-12.

- ‘En dialogue avec la ville: La Font de Saint-Yenne et l’expérience architecturale et urbaine de Paris’, in Florence Ferran, Fabrice Moulin, Élise Pavy-Guilbert (ed.), Publier sur l’art, l’architecture et la ville : La Font de Saint-Yenne et l’ambition d’une œuvre, in Diderot Studies, Genève, Droz, 2019, 247-265.

- ‘The Picturesque Prospect of Architecture: Thomas Sandby’s Royal Academy Lectures’, Architectural History 61 (2018), 73-104, The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain, Cambridge University Press.

- ‘Subjective Proportions: Eighteenth-Century Interpretations of Paestum’s ‘Disproportion’, in Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture, Matthew Cohen (ed.), Leiden, Leiden University Press, 2018, 91-111.

- ‘La ville in situ : De Londres à Paris, entre spectateur et concepteur’, in ‘Les Lieux de l’Art’, XVIIIe siècle, 50, 2017, Fabrice Moulin, Elise Pavy-Guilbert, Pierre Wachenheim (ed.), 2018, 71-84.

- ‘« Séparer la vie à l’intérieur de la vie à l’extérieur » Gottfried Semper et la notion de Raum’, Patricia Falguières, Isabel Kalinowski ed., Revue Germanique Internationale, 26 (2017), Gottfried Semper, Architecture et anthropologie au XIXe siècle, CNRS Éditions 2017, 175-190.

- ‘Experiencing Architectural Space’, in Caroline van Eck and Sigrid de Jong (ed.), Companion to Eighteenth-Century Architecture, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, 192-229.

- ‘The Quest for the Origins of Architecture’, in Caroline van Eck and Sigrid de Jong (ed.), Companion to Eighteenth-Century Architecture, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, 715-752.

- ‘Subjective Proportions: Eighteenth-Century Interpretations of Paestum’s ‘Disproportion’’, in Matthew Cohen (ed.), Proportional Systems in the History of Architecture, special issue of online journal Architectural Histories, 2016, X, 1-16.

- ‘Piranesi and Primitivism: Origin as Invention’, in Dirk de Meyer, Bart Verschaffel, Pieter-Jan Cierkens (eds.), Aspects of Piranesi: Essays on History, Criticism and Invention, Ghent: A&S/books, 2015, 70-93.

- ‘’L’âme’ de l’architecte: Le rôle des expériences dans la pensée de Soufflot’, in Claire Ollagnier and Daniel Rabreau, Jacques-Germain Soufflot ou l’architecture régénérée (1713-1780), Paris: Picard, 2015, 35-46.

- ‘Paradoxical Encounters: Eighteenth-Century Architectural Experiences and the Sublime’, in Stijn Bussels et al.(eds), Translations of the Sublime: The Early Modern Reception and Dissemination of Longinus’ Peri hupsous in Rhetoric, the Visual Arts, Architecture and the Theatre, Leiden: Brill, 2012, 247–267.

- ‘Lessons in Artistic Freedom. Labrouste’s Dutch Pupils and his Impact in the Netherlands’, in Barry Bergdoll, Corine Bélier, Marc Le Coeur (eds), Henri Labrouste (1801-1875) Structure brought to Light, New York: MOMA, 2012, 200-209 / ‘Une leçon de liberté artistique: Labrouste, ses élèves Néerlandais et son influence aux Pays-Bas’, in Barry Bergdoll, Corine Bélier, Marc Le Coeur (eds), Henri Labrouste (1801-1875) architecte. La structure mise en lumière, Lassay-les-Châteaux (Mayenne): Nicolas Chaudun / Paris: Cité de l'architecture & du patrimoine, 2012, 200-209.

- ‘Staging Ruins: Paestum and Theatricality’, in Caroline van Eck and Stijn Bussels (eds), Theatricality in Early Modern Art and Architecture, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, 134–51.

- ‘Entre machine globale et poëtique locale. MAS, Anvers’, A+ Revue Belge d’Architecture (2011) 228, 48-52.

- ‘Wit is het nieuwe zwart of de lichte vrijheid van de extensie’, in Petra Griefing, Hedendaagse Architectuur in Leuven 2006/2010, Leuven: Stad en Architectuur, 2010, 39-42.

- ‘Staging Ruins. Paestum and Theatricality’, Art History 33 (2010) 2, 334-351.

- ‘Just a house’, in The Specific and the Singular, Architecture in Flanders, 2008-2009 yearbook - 2010 edition, Antwerp: Flemish Architecture Institute, 2010, 199-206.

- ‘Architecture as a story’, in The Specific and the Singular, Architecture in Flanders, 2008-2009 yearbook - 2010 edition, Antwerp: Flemish Architecture Institute, 2010, 303-310.