Mark Girouard: An Evening of Celebration
A cause for celebration as the Paul Mellon Centre returns to real life events, for an evening in honour of architectural historian Mark Girouard. The event on 21 October 21, marked two occasions, Mark’s 90th birthday and the imminent release book, A Biographical Dictionary of English Architecture, 1540-1640, published by the Paul Mellon Centre.
One of the best parts of a job in events is getting to peek behind the curtain and take cultural vacations into niche sub-cultures. Unbeknownst to me, prior to working on the event, is that a party for Mark Girouard is the hottest ticket in town - if you just so happen to be a British Architectural Historian.
Mark was joined onstage by John Goodall - Architectural Editor of Country Life magazine, Michael Hall - Editor of The Burlington Magazine, and Catherine Croft - Director of The Twentieth Century Society. Each spoke to Mark about different periods he’s written about across a long career, namely the Elizabethan, Victorian and Modern era. Chairing the panel was the PMC Director Mark Hallett and joining us in the Public Study Room were 20 distinguished guests from the world of architecture.
Although I relished the opportunity to run an ‘IRL’ event again, I was definitely a bit rusty. With a little (lot) of help from my colleagues on Bedford Square we were delighted to offer a prosecco reception and canapes from The Garden Catering team.
Given the gravity of the celebration, the PMC commissioned a recording of the evening, courtesy of Jonathan Law Filmmaker. Released on Christmas Eve 2021 as a festive treat to the mailing list, I’ve included here for a taster of the evening.
First of all, great appreciation to Mark, Michael, John and Catherine for the conversation and to Mark Hallett for both chairing and directing the planning for the evening. Thank you to The Garden Catering for the canapes and bringing stealthy snacking back into my life. And to Rigs and Gigs for turning up at short notice with a van full of mics and wires. Eternal gratitude to Stephen Nash for coming down to manage sound on a Thursday afternoon after work! Lots of love to the Collections team for letting us commandeer their library for a night and to the Publishing team for figuring out a way to light it. Thanks too to Jon Law for a gorgeous film. a pleasure to work with. And finally, grateful as always to Dani, Steph and Bryony for supporting the event, knowing where the table-cloths were, reminding me to order food and generally saving my arse.
