Kenneth John Conant (June 28, 1894 – March 3, 1984) was an American

architectural historian An architectural historian is a person who studies and writes about the history of architecture, and is regarded as an authority on it. Professional requirements As many architectural historians are employed at universities and other facilities ...

and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

, who specialized in

medieval architecture Medieval architecture is architecture common in the Middle Ages, and includes religious, civil, and military buildings. Styles include pre-Romanesque, Romanesque, and Gothic. While most of the surviving medieval architecture is to be seen in ...

. Conant is known for his studies of

Cluny Abbey Cluny Abbey (; , formerly also ''Cluni'' or ''Clugny''; ) is a former Benedictine monastery in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France. It was dedicated to Saint Peter. The abbey was constructed in the Romanesque architectural style, with three churche ...

Career

Born in Neenah, Conant received a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1915. He was considered the academic heir of Herbert Langford Warren, a teacher at Harvard, and through him, of the art historians

Charles Eliot Norton Charles Eliot Norton (November 16, 1827 – October 21, 1908) was an American author, social critic, and Harvard professor of art based in New England. He was a progressive social reformer and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries c ...

and

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and poli ...

. He served in the 42nd Infantry Division of the

American Expeditionary Force The American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F.) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The A. E. F. was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of General John J. Pershing. It fought alon ...

in World War I and was wounded in the

Second Battle of the Marne The Second Battle of the Marne (french: Seconde Bataille de la Marne) (15 July – 18 July 1918) was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during the First World War. The attack failed when an Allied counterattack, supported by ...

in 1918. Conant later returned to Harvard. His dissertation on the

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral The Santiago de Compostela Archcathedral Basilica (Spanish and Galician: ) is part of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela and is an integral component of the Santiago de Compostela World Heritage Site in Galicia, Spain. The c ...

was published as a monograph in 1926. Conant's lifework was the study of the

in France, which he excavated beginning in 1927, funded by his first of five separate

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

s. He considered Cluny the preeminent accomplishment in all of architectural history. Conant taught architectural history at Harvard from 1924 to 1955, the year of his retirement.

Legacy

In 1916, Denman Ross painted a portrait of Conant, now in the

Harvard Art Museums The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

. In 1940, a group of students, who studied under Conant, formed the

Society of Architectural Historians The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) is an international not-for-profit organization that promotes the study and preservation of the built environment worldwide. Based in Chicago in the United States, the Society's 3,500 members include ...

under his influence.

References

External links

Mapping Gothic France profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Conant, Kenneth John 1894 births 1984 deaths People from Neenah, Wisconsin United States Army personnel of World War I 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers American architectural historians Harvard College alumni Harvard University faculty Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy American male non-fiction writers Historians from Wisconsin Presidents of the Archaeological Institute of America