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Professor Charles McKean

Contact Details

c.a.mckean@dundee.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1382 3 85738

Profile

Full CV in PDF Format  

Before joining the Programme as Professor of Scottish Architectural History, I was Chief Executive to the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland.

My teaching focuses on the interaction between towns, architecture and history, with Scotland as a focus but with comparisons taken from Europe and America. I offer three Honours modules: The Georgian Town - a two-Module Level 4 Special Subject with Prof. Bob Harris, Level 4 Towns in Crisis 1840 - 1880, and Level 3 Building the Nation, which examines the evolution of Scottish architecture.

Architecture, towns and building are some of man's most expensive activities, and have always been powerfully symbolic and towns, buildings and architecture reveal much about the priorities, culture, politics and living conditions of the past. My current research varies from Scottish culture during the Renaissance to a re-examination of the 'British' agenda of Scotland in the later eighteenth /early nineteenth century.

Together with Bob Harris ( Oxford) and Christopher Whatley, I am an investigator in an AHRC-funded research project 'The smaller Scottish town during the Enlightenment'.

charles2

Teaching Interests

Undergraduate Modules:
Level 3: Building the Nation, which examines the evolution of Scottish architecture
Level 4 The Georgian Town - a two-Module Special Subject with Prof. Bob Harris
Level 4 Towns in Crisis 1840 - 1880

Postgraduate:
Masters in History
M Litt in Urban and Cultural Histories 

Research

Publications

Selected Books

The Scottish Thirties - an Architectural Introduction (Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, 1987).

For a Wee Country: architectural contributions to Scotland since 1840 (RIAS, Edinburgh, 1990).

Edinburgh Portrait of a City (Century, London, 1993).

The Making of the Museum of Scotland (NMS, Edinburgh, 2000).

The Scottish Chateau (Sutton Press, Stroud, 2002).

Battle for the North - Scottish Railway Wars and the Forth and Tay Bridges (Granta, London, 2006).

Current Articles/Papers

YearTitle
2000 'The influence of nationalism upon the Museum of Scotland', in J. Fladmark (ed.), Heritage lV (Donhead).
2001 'Comfort and the Customising of cities', in B. Czarniawska and R. Solli (eds.), Organising Metropolitan Space and Discourse (Malmo, 2001).
2002 'Timothy Pont's Building Illustrations', in I. Cuninghame (ed.), The Nation Survey'd - the maps of Timothy Pont (East Linton, 2001).
2004 'The Architectural Evolution of Innes House', Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
2004 'Twinning Cities - Modernisation and Improvement in the old and new towns of Edinburgh', in B. Edwards (ed.), Edinburgh - the Shaping of a City (Edinburgh, 2004).
2004 'Galleries, Girnals and the Woman House', in Review of Scottish Culture.
2005 'The Scottish Renaissance Country Seat in its Setting' in Garden History 31.2 (London, 2004).
2006 'A Scottish problem with Castles' Historical Research Vol 79, no. 204
2006 'Quelques villas de l'époque du roi Jacques V1', in Châtenet M. (eds.), Maisons de Champs dans l' Europe de la renaissance Picard (Paris).
2006 'From Castles to Calvinists - Scottish Architectural Publishing in the last 50 years' in Architectural Heritage XV11
2007 'Some Later Jacobean Villas in Scotland' in M. Airs and G. Tyack, (eds.), The Renaissance Villa
2007 'A Cult of Mary Queen of Scots?' in Architectural Heritage XVIII
2008 'The Architecture of Three Religions - Scottish Church Architecture following the Council of Trent' in Châtenet et Mignot (eds) L'Architecture Religieuse après la Reforme (forthoming Paris).
2008 'The evolving role and function of the Scottish tolbooth 1500- 1740' in Ottenheym (ed.), Rencontre d'architecture europeènne: Bâtiments Publiques I (forthcoming, Paris).
2008 'Everyday building in Enlightenment Scotland' in Foyster and Whatley (eds.), Everyday life in Scotland
2008 'What kind of Renaissance port was Dundee ?' in McKean, Harris & Whatley (eds.), Dundee - the Making of the City 1500 - 1800.
2008 'Understanding pilgrimage towns - decoding Tain and Whithorn' in Architectural Heritage.

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Research Statement

My research interests focus upon the symbolic/representative/political role of architecture from Scottish Renaissance country seats and their gardens to a re-evaluation of the new Scottish Parliament building. Central to these studies is the extent to which Scottish architecture or construction was European or 'British.'

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Suggested areas for postgraduate supervision

  • Scottish architectural history
  • Scottish urban history
  • The Victorian City
  • The Early Modern Town
  • Architecture of the Scottish Renaissance
  • Late twentieth-century Scottish Architecture
  • Dundee
  • Edinburgh
  • Glasgow

Current architectural and urban postgraduate research:

  • Alexandra Johnston - The court culture of Mary Queen of Scots
  • Michael Pearce - Sir Robert Drummond of Carnock, Epitaph and Subject
  • Matthew Davis - Scottish North Eastern Tall-Houses 1570-1630
  • William Napier - The patronage and purpose of plasterwork and interior decoration in 17th century Scotland
  • Katharyne Newland - The Acquisition and use of Norwegian timber in seventeenth century Scotland, with reference to the principal building works of James Baine, His Majesty's Master Wright
  • Charles Wemyss - A Study of Aspiration and Ambition: the Scottish Treasury Commission and its impact upon the development of Scottish Country House Architecture 1667 - 1682
  • Anne Law - Forfar And The Rise Of The Coarse Linen Trade, C. 1727-1830
  • Vivienne Dunstan - Reading habits in Scotland circa 1750-1820
  • Megan Ferguson - Patrick Geddes' Celtic Renascence
  • Janet Inglis - Scotland's Castles: rescued, rebuilt and reoccupied, 1945 - 2005

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Research Problems

One of the bigger problems in Scotland has been regressive historiography in which the interpretation of Scottish buildings has been used to support an Enlightenment perspective of earlier Scottish history. Thus:

What was the material culture of Scotland before the Union ?

What can we learn from towns, buildings and their furnishings?

Just how French was the culture of Scotland during the 'French colonial period' of the 1550s and 1560s?

How did the Scottish building industry organise itself?

Is our perception of Scottish culture mirrored in buildings?

What is the symbolic significance that underpins architecture and urban evolution ?

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