Dr. Ir. M.J.F. (Maarten) Delbeke

Position:
  • Lecturer
  • Researcher
Expertise:
  • Art history
  • History and theory of architecture


Telephone number: +31 (0)71 527 2687
E-Mail: m.delbeke@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department: Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for Cultural Disciplines, KG Architectuurgeschiedenis
Office Address: Johan Huizingagebouw
Doelensteeg 16
2311 VL Leiden
Room number 1.27

Fields of interest

- theories of architecture from the early modern period until the present
- Roman baroque architecture and art, especially sculpture
- 20th century and contemporary architecture

Research

My research deals with the formation of theories on architecture and the visual arts. The part of my research that is related particularly to the early modern period deals predominantly with Italy, and with texts and practices which do not treat architecture or its theories explicitly as their subject. The most important objects of research are artists’ biographies on Gianlorenzo Bernini, the written works of the Jesuit Sforza Pallavicino and the church historian Michelangelo Lualdi, and various forms of literary architectural writings such as may be found in for example encomiastic poetry or church historical tracts. When studied in combination with other media or within the context of specific rituals or occurrences, these texts shed light on the intentions which were attributed, by one or possibly more parties, to architecture and other works of art at a particular point in time.
This approach affords an understanding of architecture as an essential part of wider cultural-historical developments. Simultaneously, it is possible to estimate the values which were attributed to the significance of architecture and other forms of art: what kind of ‘truth’ could different forms of expression represent and what effect did they have on the beholder? To reconstruct the art theoretical aspects of these questions, I refer to early modern views on a.o. historiography and prophecy on the one hand, and theories of language and metaphor on the other.

In my current research, I examine how these ideas about the signification of architecture interact with theories of design, and this from the early modern period until today, for instance in the writings of Victor Hugo, Robert Venturi or Rem Koolhaas.

With Bart Verschaffel and Caroline van Eck, I am the co-supervisor of two research projects at Ghent University on dedication and consecration rituals in the Southern Netherlands and England in the early modern period, funded by FWO and BOF/Ghent University.
With Caroline van Eck and Jürgent Pieters (Ghent University), I am involved with the NWO-funded research project Prehistories of the Sublime.
Again with Caroline van Eck, I am also setting up a collaboration between the art history department in Leiden, the architecture department at Ghent University, and the Royal Museum of Art in Brussels, to investigate the culture of patronage in the Southern Netherlands, and especially Brussels, in the early 17th century.
Finally, I am a partner investigator in a project submitted to the Austrialian Research Council by John Macarthur and Andrew Leach (Queens University), to investigate the role of the baroque in 20th century architectural culture.

Curriculum Vitae

Maarten Delbeke studied architecture at the Department of Architecture and Urban Development at Ghent University (Belgium), where he obtained his Ph.D in 2001 with a dissertation entitled ’La fenice degl’íngegni. An alternative perspective on Gianlorenzo Bernini and his work from the writings of Sforza Pallavicino’. From 2001 to 2003, he was the Scott Opler fellow in architectural history at Worcester College in Oxford, and in 2004 a visiting scholar at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. After obtaining a post doctoral fellowship from FWO (Research Foundation – Flanders), he became part-time lecturer both in the Department of Art History, Architecture, and in the Department of Architecture and Urban Development at Ghent University (Belgium). PhD (Ghent University) in 2001.
In addition, he is active as architecture critic, including as co-curator of the exhibition entitled: ‘Homeward. Contemporary architecture in Flanders’ which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale (2000). He was Laureate of the first A16 prize for young architectural criticism in Belgium (2004).

Teaching activities

Courses in the history and theory of architecture from the early modern period until the present

Publications

·         “Tot de dood hen scheidt: architectuur en het boek van Hugo tot Koolhaas,” te verschijnen in DWB 2008, themanummer “Architectuur en literatuur”, gastredacteur, samen met Christophe van Gerrewey.
·         “Framing history: the jubilee of 1625, the dedication of new Saint Peter’s and the Baldacchino,” in Festival Architecture, Sarah Bonnemaison & Christine Macy (eds.), London: Routledge, 2008, pp 129-54.
·         “Lualdi, Michelangelo,” in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, Rome: Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 2007, vol. 66, pp 236-38.
·         Geert Bekaert, Paul Vermeulen, Maarten Delbeke, Christophe van Gerrewey, Moderne Tijden. Teksten over architectuur, Gent: Ghent University/WZW, 2007, 265pp.
·         “Emblematic Historiography. Giacomo Vivio’s Discorso sopra il mirabil opera di basso rilievo (1590) and the visual culture of Sixtus V,” in Emblemata Sacra. The Rhetoric and Hermeneutics of Illustrated Sacred Discourse, Imago Figurata Studies 7, Agnès Guiderdoni-Bruslé and Ralph Dekoninck (eds.), Turnhout: Brepols, 2007, pp 349-64.
·         “Travel Guides. Programming the Coherent City,” in Tourism Revisited. International Colloquium on Architecture and Cities # 2, Hilde Heynen and David Vanderburgh (eds.), Brussel: La Lettre volée, 2007, pp 51-63.
·         “Portretten van het vroegmoderne Rome, antiek en modern,” Citygraphy. Cahier #1 (Brussel: Efemera, 2007), pp. 66-77.
·         Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy, Steven Ostrow (eds.), Bernini’s Biographies. Critical Essays. University Park (Pa.): Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006, 419 pp.
·         Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy , Steven F. Ostrow, “Prolegomena to the interdisciplinary study of Bernini’s Biographies,” in Bernini’s Biographies. Critical Essays, pp 1-72.
·         “Gianlorenzo Bernini’s bel composto. The unification of life and work in biography and historiography,” in Bernini’s Biographies. Critical Essays, pp 251-74.
·         Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy and Steven F. Ostrow, “Introduction,” in Filippo Baldinucci, The Life of Bernini, trans. Catherine Enggass, University Park: Penn State University Press, 2006, pp vii-xxxii.
·         “Roma antica, sacra, moderna: de zeventiende-eeuwse herconfiguratie van de stad in reis- en pilgrimsgidsen,” Spiegel der Letteren 48, 2 (2006): 149-61.
·         “Building review: Myth versus History. The Concert Hall in Bruges by Robbrecht & Daem Architects,” Journal of Architecture 11 (2006): 359-73.
·         Wouter Davidts, MD, Johan Lagae, Andrew Leach, “The Inconceivable Agenda”, Journal of Architecture 11 (2006): 353-57.
·         “On the Universality of Hans Vredeman de Vries,” Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen 2002 / Antwerp Royal Museum Annual 2002 (2005): 36-53.
·         The revelatory function of the image-text: the prophecies of S. Malachy during and after the papacy of Alexander VII Chigi,” Studi Secenteschi XLVI (2005): 229-56.
·         “Imagining seventeenth-century Rome. Dorothy Metzger Habel, The Urban Development of Rome in the Age of Alexander VII (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Rose Marie San Juan, Rome. A City Out of Print (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001),” Oxford Art Journal 27 (2004): 421-23.
·         “An unknown description of baroque Rome: Michelangelo Lualdi’s Galleria Sacra Architettata dalla Pietà Romana Dall’anno 1610 sino al 1645,” Bulletin de l’Institut Historique Belge à Rome LXXIV (2004): 61-271.
·         A poem, a collection of antiquities and a Saviour by Raphael. A case-study in the visualization of sacred history in early seventeenth-century Rome,” Word & Image 20 (2004): 87-104.
·         “Antonio Gherardi e la questione dello stile,” in Lydia Saraca Colonelli (ed.), Antonio Gherardi. Artista reatino (Rieti 1638 - Roma 1702). Un “genio bizzarro” nella Roma del ‘600 [cat. Rieti, 27/6 – 28/9/2003]. Rome: Artemide, 2003, 79-83.
·         La fenice degl’ingegni. Een alternatief perspectief op Gianlorenzo Bernini en zijn werk in de geschriften van Sforza Pallavicino (Ghent: Ghent Architectural and Engineering Press, 2002), 408 p. + bibliography.
·         “A Note on the Immaculist Patronage of Alexander VII: Chigi and the Pilgrimage Church of Scherpenheuvel in Belgium,” Bulletin de l’Institut Historique Belge à Rome LXXI (2001): 167-200.
·         The Pope, the Bust, the Sculptor and the Fly. An Ethical Perspective on the Work of Gianlorenzo Bernini in the Writings of Sforza Pallavicino,” Bulletin de l’Institut Historique Belge à Rome, LXX (2000): 179-223.
·         The transformation of cyberspace in William Gibsons The Urban Condition. Space, Community and Self in the Contemporary Metropolis. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 1999, 407-24. (Chinese editie in 2005)

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Last Modified: 15-02-2011