Joseph Williams - Portrait

Joseph Williams

Phyllis W. G. Gordan/Lily Auchincloss/Samuel H. Kress Foundation Pre-Doctoral Rome Prize (year two of a two-year fellowship)
September 11, 2017–July 27, 2018
Profession
PhD Candidate, Department of Art, Art History, and Visual Studies, Duke University
Project title
The Practice and Production of Architecture during the Mediterranean Commercial Revolution: The Church of S. Corrado in Molfetta (ca. 1185–1303)
Project description

This project examines the physical evidence of one medieval building to probe the circulation of architectural practice in the Mediterranean during a period of expanding commerce and communications. Molfetta Cathedral embodies a discontinuous building process and a heterogeneous repertoire, combining local and foreign structural systems and decorative techniques. In contrast to the emphasis that previous studies have placed on form and style, I use archaeological methods to unravel this work site as an intersection of diverse and shifting practical expertise in the fields of stone-cutting, assembly, engineering, and construction process. This allows me to draw more precise comparisons than before, and, on the basis of these comparisons, analyze the circulation of architectural practice on a map using a geographic information system (GIS). The cathedral emerges as a junction of pan-Mediterranean, rather than purely local, systems of church building.