London South Bank University lecturer wins the prestigious Hawksmoor Essay Medal for Groundbreaking Research
Dr Christopher Cowell, Lecturer in Architectural History and Theory at London South Bank University (LSBU), has been awarded the prestigious Hawksmoor Essay Medal from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB).
The Medal was awarded for Dr Cowell’s essay: ‘The Height of Health: Sections, Sanatoria, and Settler Colonialism in Northern India, 1815–1842’. Combining architectural expertise with historical analysis, the essay combines architectural visual analysis with textual primary sources and examines the early colonial history of hill stations in the Himalayas. It explores how the British East India Company established military medical sanatoria - facilities that provide medical care for sick and injured military personnel - while hiding a secondary programme of white settler colonialism. The judging panel cited Dr Cowell for his ‘innovative’ and ‘impressive’ essay, which ‘intertwined geographical, medical, art and colonial settlement history’.
The SAHGB run an internationally prestigious awards programme celebrating the best in research and publishing in architectural history.
The Society's Essay Medal (known as 'the Hawksmoor') is an annual competition awarded each year to the author of the best essay submitted anonymously and is presented at the Society's Annual Lecture and Awards Ceremony. As part of his prize, Dr Cowell received a bronze medal featuring a relief portrait of Nicholas Hawksmoor, based on the bust of the architect by John Cheere.
Dr Chris Cowell said: “I’m honoured to have received the Hawksmoor Medal. Through this win, the Society has acknowledged and supported the somewhat unconventional approaches in theme and method I take in using architecture in my historical work on British colonialism, giving me the confidence to continue along this path.
“Throughout my design and now historical life, I have maintained the belief that architecture is symptomatic and generative of other important societal issues and not just an end in and of itself. I use architecture as a historical medium to join various themes and subjects in their often-darker aspects. I’ve always been interdisciplinary in how I look at things. So this medal is a vindication of the journey that I and many of my colleagues in architectural history are now taking, looking beyond the envelopes of our discipline yet using that discipline to frame other areas in surprising ways. For instance, my next project will focus on military urbanism across colonial South Asia and the infrastructure systems that held these sites together.”
Dr Cowell is an early-career researcher who completed a doctoral degree in architecture (History and Theory) at Columbia University. His research is geographically broad and focuses on southern China and northern India. His recent book, Form Follows Fever: Malaria and the Construction of Hong Kong, 1841–1849, which was published last year, explores the urban and architectural construction of Hong Kong in the nineteenth century, arguing that perceptions of pre-bacteriological miasma theory had a pivotal effect on the shaping of the city.