{"id":2616993,"date":"2025-01-30T10:29:24","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T15:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.gsd.harvard.edu\/specialcollections\/?page_id=2616993"},"modified":"2025-04-24T00:34:31","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T04:34:31","slug":"envisioning-cluny","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.gsd.harvard.edu\/specialcollections\/envisioning-cluny\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cluny Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Kenneth<\/figure>
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The Cluny Collection<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The Cluny Collection was established at the GSD when Gund Hall opened in 1972. Donated by Kenneth J. Conant (1894-1984) the collection includes a broad range of materials related to his years teaching architectural history at the GSD (1920-1956) and his decades of archaeological work and architectural reconstruction research of the Benedictine abbey at Cluny, France. It includes his undergraduate and graduate student work at Harvard, correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, sketches, architectural drawings, and his library of related books and journals. The collection also includes eight plaster casts of the capitals from the apse of Cluny III, commissioned by Conant in 1929. These were gifted to the GSD by the Harvard Art Museum in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Included in this site is an online catalog of the exhibition Envisioning Cluny: Kenneth Conant and Representations of Medieval Architecture 1872-2025<\/a><\/em>, displayed from January 21st to April 4th, 2025 at the Druker Gallery. Curated by Christine Smith, Robert C. and Marion K. Weinberg Professor of Architectural History. Her accompanying essay includes archival materials that draw primarily from the Cluny Collection, except as noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Download brochure with essay and exhibition checklist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Explore the AR Installation of Cluny III.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go to GSD Exhibitions<\/a> Website for dates and photos of the exhibition in Druker Design Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Unknown photographer
Kenneth Conant in an excavation trench at Cluny, 1931
Photograph. Modern print from a lantern slide
Frances Loeb Library, Harvard University Graduate School of Design,  B 398\/x19<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Envisioning Cluny: Kenneth Conant and Representations of Medieval Architecture 1872-2025<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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This exhibition celebrates the study of medieval architecture at Harvard University. While medieval buildings have been continuously studied, the technologies of their visualization, knowledge about them, and the purposes to which this knowledge was and is applied have evolved constantly. The representational means by which architecture can be researched, taught, and envisioned have evolved from photographs, drawings, and casts to digital images and animations. This tradition, represented by Harvard University\u2019s remarkable holdings used for teaching and research, is illustrated by the works on view. A connective thread of the narrative is Kenneth Conant (1894\u20131984) who, having received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, taught architectural history here from 1920 to 1954.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four sections of the show begin with Conant\u2019s training as an architect and formation as a scholar, focusing on the late nineteenth-century adoption of the new medium of photography, important both for the medievalizing design of Henry Hobson Richardson and Herbert Langford Warren and for the innovative art historical scholarship of Arthur Kingsley Porter. The second part is Conant\u2019s work at the Benedictine abbey of Cluny, France, which was built in the eleventh and twelfth centuries but had been almost entirely destroyed following the French Revolution. Believing Cluny III (the third abbey church) to have been one of the most important and beautiful creations of the Middle Ages, Conant envisioned its original appearance by embodying meticulously measured remains in compelling graphics vivified by his extraordinary imagination. Part three centers on the eight plaster casts of capitals from Cluny III that Conant commissioned in 1929 and displayed in the Fogg Art Museum until 1936. Plaster casts of famous works of art were the means by which American architects learned the history of their craft, acquired a vocabulary of historical tropes to apply in their own work, and formed their taste by gaining an appreciation for the \u201cbest\u201d works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the 1920s, the canon of artifacts worthy of such study had been extended to cultures previously excluded or ignored, such as the pre-gothic Middle Ages in Germany and France. The Cluny capital casts exemplify this trend. At this same time, casts became less valued than study of original works: today few of the many casts once on view in the Old Fogg Museum (Hunt Hall, 1893) and Robinson Hall (1902), Harvard\u2019s architecture school before Gund Hall replaced it in 1972, can be seen on campus. The narrative concludes with recently created 3D digital models of the Cluny capital casts. These high-resolution, photorealistic representations of real-world objects allow students and scholars to engage with surrogates in new ways that suggest previously unimagined possibilities for future scholarship.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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EXPLORE THE EXHIBITION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Kenneth John Conant (1894-1984)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. “Ah, Cluny…How Wonderful…Only Paradise is More Beautiful”<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. The Plaster Casts of Cluny’s Hemicycle Capitals<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Rebuilding Cluny: Digital Experiments with Medieval Architecture<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Kenneth John Conant (1894-1984)<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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\"Santiago<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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“Ah, Cluny… How Wonderful… Only Paradise is More Beautiful”<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"View<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Plaster Casts of Cluny’s Hemicycle Capitals<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Capital<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Rebuilding Cluny: Digital Experiments with Medieval Architecture<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Shooting<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"white<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Cluny Collection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exhibition<\/strong>: Envisioning Cluny: Kenneth Conant and Representations of Medieval Architecture, 1872\u20132025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curator<\/strong>: Christine Smith, Robert C. and Marion K. Weinberg Professor of Architectural History
Collaborators<\/strong>: Matthew Cook, Digital Scholarship Programs Manager, Widener Library; Ines Zalduendo, Special Collections Curator at the Frances Loeb Library, M.Arch ’95
Animation<\/strong>: Clayton Scoble, Media Lab Director, Lamont Library
Assistants<\/strong>: Kian Hosseinnia, M.Arch ’24; Hayley Eaves, Ph.D Candidate
Exhibition Design<\/strong>: Dan Borelli, Director of Exhibitions, GSD, M.Des ’12
Online Exhibition Design<\/strong>: Ashleigh Brady, Archival Collections Website Editor, M.Arch ’26<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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