Specialization:
Areas of Concentration: 18th and 19th century European architecture; monuments and public space; ephemeral architecture; architectural theory
Faculty Advisor: Richard Wittman
Committee Members: Swati Chattopadhyay, Manuel Covo (History, UCSB)
Dissertation: “Ephemeral Monuments, the Modern French State, and the Parisian Public, 1789-1848”
M.A. Thesis: "Moralizing Utopia: The Virtues of Collectivity and Happiness in Ledoux’s Ideal City of Chaux" (Tufts University, completed 2016)
Bio:
Taylor Van Doorne is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of the History of Art & Architecture, specializing in the history and theory of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European architecture. Her dissertation project, under the supervision of Professor Richard Wittman, examines how ephemeral monuments and festival decorations were deployed in state celebrations in Paris during the French Revolution to the July Monarchy, as a means of establishing and legitimizing political dynasties on the public stage. Taylor is the co-founder of the digital graduate journal react/review: a responsive journal for art & architectural history and managing editor of its debut issue (published through UC eScholarship Open Access Publications). She has been the recipient of several grants, fellowships, and awards while at UCSB including the Albert & Elaine Borchard European Studies Fellowship for Dissertation Research (2020), a Mellon Engaging Humanities Graduate Fellowship (2020), a Graduate Committee Award (2019), and a Regents Fellowship (2017-2018). In 2016, she received her M.A. in Art and Architectural History from Tufts University after having completed a thesis on the influence of Rousseauian moral philosophy and the themes of collectivity and happiness in Claude-Nicolas Ledoux’s ideal city of Chaux. She graduated with a B.A. from Mills College in 2014 with a double major in Art History and English.