Biography
Rebecca Tropp is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of History of Art and Archivist at Crosby Moran Hall in London.
Her PhD, jointly funded by the Cambridge Trust and St John’s College, investigated three-dimensional repercussions of the Picturesque on the design and execution of British country houses at the turn of the nineteenth century, focusing on the works of James Wyatt (1746–1813), John Nash (1752–1835) and Sir John Soane (1753–1837). Additional research funding was provided by grants from the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB) and Kettle’s Yard. Following completion, she received a Paul Mellon Centre Research Continuity Fellowship to pursue a new project, ‘Accommodating the Picturesque: Colonial Influences on Issues of Permeability’. She has published articles in Architectural History, the Georgian Group Journal and Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes; presented at conferences in the UK, US and Switzerland; and given public talks for the Paul Mellon Centre, the Georgian Group and the Soane Museum.
She earned her MPhil in History of Art and Architecture at Cambridge in 2015, analysing recurring spatial arrangements and patterns of movement in the country houses of John Nash. Her BA (magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) is from Columbia University in New York, with a major in the History and Theory of Architecture. She has held full-time internships at the Brooklyn Museum and Asia Society Museum in New York and worked for a number of years for a private collector of modern and contemporary art.
Rebecca has over seven years of teaching experience, encompassing lectures and supervisions for courses across the History of Art undergraduate Tripos, including the plenary Part I Meaning of Architecture and Part IIB Display of Art courses, as well as the Part IIA/B elective papers ‘British Architecture in the Age of Enlightenment, Industry and Reform’, ‘Paris 1715–1815: The Birth of the Modern Art World’ and ‘Collecting Islamic Art’. She has also served as a secondary supervisor for the MPhil in History of Art & Architecture. She lectures as part of the CSCA Summer School in Classical Architecture and, outside of Cambridge, has convened and taught undergraduate history and theory courses for first- and second-year architecture students and, most recently, co-taught the Yale in London course ‘The British Country House: Collecting and Display’. Having successfully completed the Teaching Associates’ Programme (TAP) at Cambridge in 2020, she is accredited as an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA).
Research
Rebecca’s research explores changing relationships between the built and natural environments in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain under the influence of the picturesque aesthetic of the period. In particular, she studies the interface between domestic architecture and its surroundings, including its grounding in the landscape and the role of transitional elements such as steps, windows, loggias, verandas and conservatories in defining and embodying that relationship; at the core of her investigations is the role of the moving figure traversing architectural spaces. She is currently widening the lens of her doctoral thesis to Britain’s global empire, examining theories and manifestations of architectural permeability at the turn of the nineteenth century in the colonial Caribbean and Indian subcontinent. In addition, she is investigating links between the emerging Picturesque in Britain and the experience of exploring Italian cities (particularly Rome) on the Grand Tour. Other interests include architectural draughtsmanship; the history of windows and interior illumination; the potential of columns to frame, partition and bridge; and patronage by historically overlooked groups.
More broadly, she is interested in the art, architectural and landscape history of Western Europe, especially Britain and France, c. 1650–1900.
