CURL, James Stevens 1937-

(Adytum, E. B. Keeling, Parsifal)

PERSONAL: Born March 26, 1937, in Belfast, Northern Ireland; son of George Stevens (in business) and Sarah (McKinney) Curl; married Eileen Elizabeth Blackstock (a psychiatrist), January 1, 1960 (marriage ended, 1986); married Stanislawa Dorota Iwaniec (a professor), May 29, 1993; children: (first marriage) Astrid, Ingrid. Education: Attended Queens University and Belfast College of Art, 1954-58; Oxford School of Architecture, Dipl. Arch., 1964, Dip. T.P., 1967; University College, London, Ph.D., 1981. Hobbies and other interests: Travel, opera, music, food and wine, poetry, painting.

ADDRESSES: Home—15 Torgrange, Holywood, County Down BT18 0NG, Northern Ireland.

CAREER: Architect and planner, Oxford, England, 1963-69; Oxford School of Architecture, Oxford, tutor in history of architecture, 1967-73; Scottish Committee for European Architectural Heritage Year, consulting architect, 1973-75; Hertfordshire County Council, Planning Department, Hertfordshire, England, principal architect-planner, 1975-78; De Montfort University, Leicester, England, senior lecturer, 1978-88, professor of history of architecture, 1988-98, professor emeritus, 1998—, researcher at Centre for Conservation Studies, 1995-98, research fellow at School of Architecture, 1998-2000; Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, professor of architectural history, 2000—, senior research fellow at School of Architecture, 2000-02, honorary senior research fellow, 2002—. Cambridge University, visiting fellow of Peterhouse, 1991-92, 2002. Architectural editor for a survey of London, England, 1970-73; Leicester Cathedral, member of fabric advisory committee, 1992-3000; Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery, member of advisory council, 1998—.

MEMBER: Royal Society of Ulster Architects, Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects (liveryman), Royal Town Planning Institute, Royal Institute of British Architects, Royal Overseas League, Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (associate), Society of Antiquaries of London (fellow), Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (fellow), Art Workers' Guild, Oxford Civic Society (chair, 1969-72), Royal North of Ireland Yacht Club.

AWARDS, HONORS: Sir Charles Lanyon Prize for measured drawings; traveling scholarship to Germany, 1962; grants from Society of Antiquaries of London, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1983, and British Academy, 1982, 1983, 1992, 1994, 1998; Sir Banister Fletcher Award, Royal Institute of British Architects, 1992, for The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry: An Introductory Study.

WRITINGS:

European Cities and Society, Leonard Hill (London, England), 1970.

The Victorian Celebration of Death: Architecture and Planning of the 19th Century Necropolis, David & Charles (Newton Abbot, England), 1972, revised edition published as The Victorian Celebration of Death: A Study in Thanatopsis, 2001.

The Egyptian Revival: An Introductory Study of a Recurring Theme in the History of Taste, Allen & Unwin (London, England), 1972.

(With Timothy M. Richards) City of London Pubs: A Practical and Historical Guide, Drake Publishers (New York, NY), 1973.

Victorian Architecture, David & Charles (Newton Abbot, England), 1973.

The Erosion of Oxford, Oxford Illustrated Press (Oxford, England), 1977.

English Architecture: An Illustrated Glossary, David & Charles (Newton Abbot, England), 1977.

Moneymore and Draperstown: The Architecture and Planning of the Estates of the Drapers' Company in Ulster, Ulster Architectural Heritage Society (Ulster, Northern Ireland), 1979.

A Celebration of Death: An Introduction to Some of the Buildings, Monuments, and Settings of Funerary Architecture in the Western European Tradition, Scribner (New York, NY), 1980.

Classical Churches in Ulster, 1980.

The History, Architecture, and Planning of the Estates of the Fishmongers' Company in Ulster, Ulster Architectural Heritage Society (Belfast, Northern Ireland), 1981.

The Life and Work of Henry Roberts (1803-76), Architect, Phillimore (Chichester, West Sussex, England), 1983.

The Londonderry Plantation, 1609-1914: The History, Architecture, and Planning of the Estates of the City of London and Its Livery Companies in Ulster, Phillimore (Chichester, West Sussex, England), 1986.

English Architecture: An Illustrated Glossary, David & Charles (Newton Abbot, England), 1986.

Victorian Architecture, Sterling Publishing (New York, NY), 1990.

The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry: An Introductory Study, 1991, new edition, Overlook Press (Woodstock, NY), 1993.

Classical Architecture: An Introduction to Its Vocabulary and Essentials, with a Select Glossary of Terms, Van Nostrand Reinhold (New York, NY), 1992, 2nd edition, Norton (New York, NY), 2003.

Georgian Architecture, David & Charles (Newton Abbot, England), 1993.

Egyptomania: The Egyptian Revival, a Recurring Theme in the History of Taste, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1994.

Book of Victorian Churches, English Heritage (London, England), 1995.

Encyclopaedia of Architectural Terms, illustrated by Curl and John J. Sambrook, Donhead (London, England), 1997.

(Compiler) A Dictionary of Architecture (published in England as The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture), illustrated by Curl and John J. Sambrook, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

The Honourable the Irish Society and the Plantation of Ulster, 1608-2000: The City of London and the Colonisation of County Londonderry in the Province of Ulster in Ireland; A History and Critique, Phillimore (Chichester, West Sussex, England), 2000.

Kensal Green Cemetery, 1824-2001, 2001.

Piety Proclaimed: An Introduction to Places of Worship in Victorian England, Sutton Publishing (Stroud, England), 2002.

Shorter works include "Mausolea in Ulster," Ulster Architectural Heritage Society (Belfast, Northern Ireland), 1978. Contributor to Encyclopedia of Town Planning, McGraw Hill (New York, NY), 1973; author of introductions, Irish Cathedrals, Churches and Abbeys and Irish Castles and Historic Houses, both edited by Brendan O'Neill, Caxton Editions (London, England), 2002. Contributor of articles, some under pseudonyms Adytum, E. B. Keeling, or Parsifal, to periodicals, including Country Life, Connaissance des Arts, Progressive Architecture, Offıcial Architecture and Planning, Guardian, and Spectator. Architectural specialist contributor, Survey of London, 1970-73.

SIDELIGHTS: James Stevens Curl once told CA: "As an historian I try to ferret out aspects of fact that have not been aired or have been misunderstood. For example, my work on the Egyptian Revival was subtitled An Introductory Study of a Recurring Theme in the History of Taste, for I became fascinated about how much design motifs derived from ancient Egyptian art and architecture permeated our civilization. Nobody had covered this ground before in such a thorough way. Similarly, the architecture of death is something that most commentators have left alone, but I found a whole field was there just for the taking, and I wrote A Celebration of Death because nobody had taken the landscapes of cemeteries or the design of monuments and mausolea seriously as real architecture. I have made a television program about death and its monuments, and I have been lecturing on the subject ever since.

"I think there is no point in writing yet another book about someone who has been flogged to death by other writers. I chose Henry Roberts as the subject of my first biography because he is of great importance in the history of housing reform. I was amazed by parrot-like comments of other writers over the years which referred to Henry Roberts as 'obscure' or 'otherwise unknown.' In fact there is a great deal known about him, and I found out a lot more which I incorporated in the book. Roberts was born in Philadelphia, for example, and everyone assumed he was a Londoner because he worked with Lord Shaftesbury and the Prince Consort.

"More recent work deals with the estates of the City of London in Ulster, and again I chose the subject because nobody else has done it and because the records from 1609 to 1914 are beautifully preserved in the halls of the London Livery Companies, including marvelous seventeenth-century drawings. It is a fascinating story, and one that sheds a lot of light on the current problems of Northern Ireland, a place that suffers more than anywhere else from ill-informed commentary and willful ignorance, notably in England and America. I am interested in facts rather than mythology, and I regard facts as my legitimate quarry from which I can fashion my studies. I care deeply about truth above all else, and I regard it as my duty to tell the truth in my writings."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Historical Review, June, 1996, review of Egyptomania: The Egyptian Revival, a Recurring Theme in the History of Taste, p. 809.

American Journal of Archaeology, January, 1997, Helen Whitehouse, review of Egyptomania, p. 158.

American Reference Books Annual, 2001, review of A Dictionary of Architecture, p. 456.

Antiquaries Journal, Volume 67, number 1, 1987, review of The Londonderry Plantation, 1609-1914: The History, Architecture, and Planning of the Estates of the City of London and Its Livery Companies in Ulster, p. 203.

Apollo, February, 1991, review of Victorian Architecture, p. 137; December, 1991, review of The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry: An Introductory Study, p. 431.

Architectural Review, April, 1993, David Watkin, review of Classical Architecture: An Introduction to Its Vocabulary and Essentials, with a Select Glossary of Terms, p. 96; June, 1999, Peter Davey, review of A Dictionary of Architecture, p. 96; June, 2002, David Watkin, review of Classical Architecture, p. 104.

Architects' Journal, October 6, 1994, Dan Cruickshank, review of Egyptomania, p. 50; January 18, 1996, Jennifer Freeman, review of Book of Victorian Churches, p. 46; April 8, 1999, Timothy Mowl, review of A Dictionary of Architecture, p. 48; October 17, 2002, Timothy Mowl, review of Piety Proclaimed: An Introduction to Places of Worship in Victorian England, p. 44.

Booklist, July, 1999, Mary Ellen Quinn, review of A Dictionary of Architecture, p. 1972.

Burlington, August, 1995, review of Egyptomania, p. 549; August, 1996, review of Book of Victorian Churches, p. 550.

Choice, April, 1991, review of Egyptomania, p. 1280.

College and Research Libraries, May, 1994, review of Encyclopaedia of Architectural Terms, p. 246.

Contemporary Review, January, 2003, review of Death and Architecture: An Introduction to Funerary and Commemorative Buildings in the Western European Tradition, with Some Consideration of Their Settings, p. 59.

Eighteenth Century Life, February, 1996, Steven C. Bullock, review of The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry, p. 80.

English Historical Review, October, 1990, review of Victorian Architecture, p. 1100.

History: Journal of the Historical Association, February, 1994, Terence M. Russell, review of Georgian Architecture, p. 255.

History Today, February, 1992, review of The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry, p. 61.

Library Journal, March 15, 1999, Paul Glassman, review of A Dictionary of Architecture, p. 68.

New York Times Book Review, December 5, 1993, Martin Filler, review of The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry, p. 18.

Quill and Quire, January, 1994, review of Georgian Architecture, p. 32.

Reference and Research Book News, November, 1993, review of The Art and Architecture of Freemasonry, p. 36.

Times Literary Supplement, June 12, 1987, review of The Londonderry Plantation, 1609-1914, p. 639; July 27, 1990, review of Victorian Architecture, p. 802; November 1, 2002, Hal Jensen, review of Death and Architecture, p. 12.*