Marion Harney

Biography

Marion Harney is a professor belongs to the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering from the university of Bath.

Research Interest

Marion’s main research interests are the history and theory of historic buildings, designed and cultural landscapes, World Heritage Sites and their conservation, with a particular interest in eighteenth century architecture, landscape and literature and how literature reflects and shapes the way in which we see the landscape and the environment. In collaboration with colleagues she played a lead role in developing internationally renowned research into the application of Computer Aided Design techniques to inform traditional scholarship in the field of architectural history. The digital reconstruction of lost landscapes and buildings is a novel, unique and effective area of research which gives the opportunity to research the history and development of landscapes and buildings that have been lost, significantly altered, or never realised. Much of her historical research has underpinned the use of computer models developed in CASA to visualise and analyse important historic buildings & rural and urban landscapes and in some cases the digital reconstruction provides the only means by which they could be reconstructed, analysed and assessed, or in some cases regressed to recover a particular period in their development. Sole researcher for the Pevsner Architectural Guide to Bath, Yale University Press (2003) she engages in sustained knowledge exchange; technology-transfer; public engagement and research impact activities with non-academic external national and international organisations such as; National Trust, English Heritage, Historic England, Electronic Visualisation and the Arts; the Sorbonne; Dublin and numerous Bath-based initiatives. Technology-transfer activities led to collaborations with National Trust on Engineering Doctorates (co-funded between the Trust and EPSRC) piloting the use of digital technology in ‘real-life’, heritage sites. Marion’s book Place-Making for the Imagination: Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill, (Surrey, 2013) won the prestigious international John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize for 2015 which recognises books that have made significant contributions to the study and understanding of garden history and landscape studies, awarded by The Foundation for Landscape Studies, New York. She has also undertaken significant editorial duties for a commissioned Wiley Blackwell book. Gardens and Landscapes in Historic Building Conservation, (ed.) (Oxford, 2014) which incorporates original research material and contains a series of innovative professional, up-to-date case studies and its publication as an essential resource for conservation students and professional practice.