G. E. Street: Celebrating the Paul Joyce Archive and Library

Discussion workshop on the Victorian architect George Edmund Street (1824-81) celebrating material in the Paul Joyce Archive and Library donated to the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in 2016. This event has been co-organised by the Paul Mellon Centre with Michael Hall, Editor of The Burlington Magazine (and author of George Frederick Bodley and the Later Gothic Revival in Britain and America).

George Edmund Street was a leading practitioner of the Victorian Gothic revival. Though mainly an ecclesiastical architect, he is perhaps best known as the designer of the Royal Courts of Justice, on the Strand in London.

Paul R. Joyce (1934-2014) was an architectural draughtsman who worked for the architect Roderick Gradidge in the 1970s. Joyce had a strong interest in conservation and although he published little of his own research, he was the acknowledged authority on George Edmund Street for over 40 years.

This discussion workshop will bring together scholars in the field and those working on the collection. As well as a series of short talks it will also include a visit to one of Street’s churches, St James the Less on Vauxhall Bridge Road, and an opportunity to view related material at the Architectural Association Archive.

The archive contains research material created and collected by Joyce throughout his life. The majority of the files concern Joyce’s extensive work on George Edmund Street collating detailed study on the architect’s known works. The collection includes photographs, index cards, correspondence and – of particular importance – over a hundred original plans, drawings and designs. The library includes copies of Street’s principal publications, together with a group of books and guides on churches he designed or restored.

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