Virginia Jansen

Faculty Main

Virginia Jansen

Title: 
Emeritus Professor
Email: 
goth@ucsc.edu
Medieval visual culture, urbanism, and secular building; Gothic architecture, campus planning and architecture.
Research Interests: 

1) English Gothic architecture
current project: book, Reform, Kingship, and Building: Ideologies in Architecture from Salisbury Cathedral to Westminster Abbey, c. 1216- 1250, book partially written. The study explores patronage, meaning and ideology of forms, the interaction between architecture and medieval society and its representation.

2) Urban building & secular architecture
A long-range project to examine secular building in particular, including workshops, warehouses, cellars and undercrofts dormitories, refectories, barns, etc., but also the "stripped-down" churches of the middle-class towns and of the friars. Exploration of the social functions of building types, broadening as it undercuts traditional categories of discourse. Projected book on Medieval Urban Service Architecture.

3) Late German Gothic architecture

4) The Architectural Profession without "Architects," edited volume, in planning
Anyone interested in contributing an essay, please contact me. The planned focus is not restricted in time nor place.

5) Campus planning and architecture, specifically related to the development of the Santa Cruz collegiate plan

Office: 
Mailing address: Virginia Jansen University of California, Santa Cruz Cowell Faculty Services 1156 High Street Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Selected Publications: 

"Cistercian Threads in the Fabric of Canterbury and Salisbury Cathedrals," Perspectives for an Architecture of Solitude: Essays on Cistercians, Art and Architecture in Honour of Peter Fergusson, ed. Terryl N. Kinder, co-edition Turnhout: Brepols (Medieval Church Studies 11) and Cîteaux: Commentarii cistercienses (Studia et Documenta 13), 2004, 341-49

"Deutsche und englische Architektur der Parlerzeit im Vergleich," Parlerbauten: Architektur, Skulptur, Restaurierung, Internationales Parler-Symposium (Schwäbisch Gmünd, 2001), Arbeitsheft 13, Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Württemberg, eds. Richard Strobel and Annette Siefert, Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss Verlag, 2004, 181-88

Collegiate Controversies at the University of California, Santa Cruz,Chronicle of the University of California, No. 5: Against the Grain: Conflict and Controversy at the University of California, Spring 2002, 99-102

Henry III's Windsor: Castle-building and Residences, Windsor: Medieval Archaeology, Art and Architecture of the Thames Valley, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions XXV, eds. Laurence Keen and Eileen Scarff, 2002, 95-109

Review of John A.A. Goodall, God's House at Ewelme: Life, Devotion and Architecture in a Fifteenth-Century Almshouse. Aldershot, England, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001, in Speculum, 78:4 (2003), 1297-99

Review of Norbert Nußbaum, German Gothic Church Architecture, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000, in CAA.Reviews at http://www.caareviews.org/reviews/nussbaum.html

Review of Nicola Coldstream: The Decorated Style: Architecture and Ornament 1240-1360, in Speculum, 74:1, 1999, 143-45

"German Gothic Architecture" and "German Late Gothic Architecture," Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, ed. John M. Jeep, New York: Garland Publishing, 2001, 274-78 and 293-95

"George Gilbert Scott and Restoration at Chester Cathedral, 1819-1876," Chester: Medieval Archaeology, Art and Architecture, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions XXII, ed. Alan Thacker, 2000, 81-97

"Attested but Opaque: The Early Gothic East End of St. Werburgh's Abbey, Chester," Chester: Medieval Archaeology, Art and Architecture, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions XXII, ed. Alan Thacker, 2000, 57-65

"Relearning Medievalism: The New Las Vegas," Sarum Seminar Newsletter, fall 2000

"Architecture and Community in Medieval Monastic Dormitories," Studies in Cistercian Art and Architecture, V (Cistercian Studies Series 167), ed. Meredith Parsons Lillich, 1998, 58-94

"Salisbury Cathedral and the Episcopal Style in the Early Thirteenth Century," Medieval Art and Architecture at Salisbury, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions XVII, 1996, 32-39

The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, New York: Grove's Dictionaries, 1996
"Dormitory," 21: 843-44
"St. Georg, Dinkelsbühl," 8: 905-06
"St. Georg, Nördlingen," 23: 204-05

"Henry III of England -- 'Bad' Ruler, Superb Patron of the Arts," The Anglo-Norman Anonymous, 14:1 (1996), 7 (abstract of paper).

"The Design and Building Sequence of the Eastern Arm of Exeter Cathedral, c. 1270- 1310: A Qualified Study," Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter Cathedral, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions Xl, Francis Kelly, ed., 1991, 35- 56

"Medieval 'Service' Architecture: Undercrofts," Medieval Architecture and Its Intellectual Context: Studies in Honour of Peter Kidson, Eric Fernie and Paul Crossley, eds., London: The Hambledon Press, 1990, 73- 79

Review of R. Allen Brown: The Architecture of Castles, in Design Book Review, 9, spring 1986,

"Lambeth Palace Chapel, the Temple Choir, and Southern English Gothic Architecture of c. 1215-1240," England in the Thirteenth Century, Proceedings of the 1984 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W. M. Orrnrod, Grantham (Lincolnshire, England), 1985, 95- 99

Review of Jean Gimpel: The Cathedral Builders, in Design Book Review, 5, fall 1984, 38- 40
"Architectural Remains of King John's Abbey, Beaulieu (Hampshire),"Studies in Cistercian Art and Architecture, II, 1984, 76- 114

"Dying Mouldings, Vertical Springer Blocks, and Hollow Chamfers in Thirteenth- Century Architecture," Journal of the British Archaeological Association, CXXXV, 1982, 35- 54

"Round or Square? The Axial Towers of the Abbey Church of Saint- Riquier," Gesta, XXI/2, 1982, 83- 90

"Superposed Wall Passages and the Triforium Elevation of St. Werburg's, Chester," Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XXXVIII, 1979, 223- 243 (recipient of Elliott Prize from the Medieval Academy of America, 1981)

"The Choir Elevation of St. Werburgh's Chester," abstract of paper, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XXXI, 1972, 236- 7

Education and Training: 
1975 Ph.D., History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
1967 M.A., History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
1964-65 History of Art, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany
1964 A.B., German Language and Literature, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
1962-63 Junior year abroad at the Universität Hamburg, Germany
Adjunct
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