Cameron Macdonell is a historian of art, architecture, and interior design. He focuses on the construction of meaning through iconographical, phenomenological, and psychological approaches to interiority, especially the narratology of textual environments and the ritualization of built environments. His first book, Ghost Storeys (McGill-Queen鈥檚 University Press, 2017), unfolds a narrative of physiological and psychological trauma in the highly ritualized spaces of a Gothic Revival church, contextualizing the architect鈥檚 Gothic literature to present revivalist architecture as the phantom limb pain of an irrecuperable past. Cameron鈥檚 current book project, 鈥淗aunted Houses: Citing/Siting/Sighting the Ghost in British and American Architecture, ca. 1660 and Beyond,鈥� traces the ghost as a metaphysical and metaphorical figure (of speech) haunting the autobiographical interiors of houses architects design for themselves. And his next major research project explores the afterlives of artifacts (from discrete objets d鈥檃rt to reclaimed materials) within the interior designs of Canadian houses.
Cameron received an honours BA in art history from the University of Windsor, winning the Board of Governors Medal for the School of Visual Arts. He received an MA in Canadian art history from York University, where his SSHRC-funded research earned him a nomination for the Governor General鈥檚 Gold Medal. He received his PhD in the history and theory of architecture at McGill University, where his SSHRC-funded dissertation was awarded the King Student Medal from the ARCC. He has also worked as a postdoctoral assistant at ETH Z眉rich, as a research associate with McGill University鈥檚 school of architecture, and as a copyeditor for book and journal projects, including several issues of the Journal of Architectural Education.
- History
- Visual/Textual Culture
- Media Culture
- Game Design
Books
- Macdonell, Cameron. Ghost Storeys: Ralph Adams Cram, Modern Gothic Media, and Deconstructive Microhistory at a Canadian Church. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017.
Book Chapters
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淯pkeep and the Ghost in the Machine: Bataille Bursts Banham鈥檚 Bubble.鈥� In Upkeep, Repair, and Maintenance in Adaptive Interiors, 19 pp. Routledge, Forthcoming.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淭hrough the Looking Glass, Beyond the Uncanny Valley: Reflecting on the Interiority of Ex Machina.鈥� In Intense Interiors: 2023 Architecture + Film Symposium, 91福利, 55鈥�62. Architecture + Film Symposium, 2023.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淒o You Hear the People Sing?鈥� In Architectural Ethnography, 140鈥�43. TOTO, 2018.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淧ostmodernism Is Almost All Right: Polish Architecture After Socialist Globalisation.鈥� In Architectural Ethnography, 44鈥�47. TOTO, 2018.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淩efugee Republic.鈥� In Architectural Ethnography, 144鈥�47. TOTO, 2018.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淩ogue Economies, vol. 1: Revelations and Revolutions.鈥� In Architectural Ethnography, 36鈥�39. TOTO, 2018.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淰alpar茫so P煤blico.鈥� In Architectural Ethnography, 56鈥�59. TOTO, 2018.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淕othic Historiography: An Interdisciplinary Speculation.鈥� In The Companion to the History of Architecture, Volume III: Nineteenth-Century Architecture, 131鈥�46. Wiley, 2017.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淭he American Pugins: Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue.鈥� In Gothic Revival Worldwide: A. W. N. Pugin鈥檚 Global Influence, 94鈥�105. Leuven University Press, 2016.
Journal Articles
- Macdonell, Cameron. "Tomes and Tombs: Towards a Phenomenology of Interiors in Dungeons & Dragons," Games and Culture, Under Review.
- Macdonell, Cameron, and John Sicat. 鈥淕host Written: The Winchester House as Cinematic Trans-Mediation.鈥� idea journal 19, no. 1 (2022): 128鈥�37.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淕arrison Gothic: Timber Con(I)fers the Anglo-Canadian Subject.鈥� Architectural Theory Review 25, no. 1鈥�2 (2021): 165鈥�79.
- Adams, Annmarie, and Cameron Macdonell. 鈥淢aking Himself at Home: Cormier, Trudeau, and the Architecture of Domestic Masculinity.鈥� Winterthur Portfolio 50, no. 2鈥�3 (2016): 151鈥�89.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥淗umouring the Humours: An Introduction to the Comedic Gothic of Ralph Adams Cram and Bertram Goodhue in the United States and Canada.鈥� Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada 37, no. 2 (2012): 13鈥�29.
- Bressani, Martin, and Cameron Macdonell. 鈥淩emedies External and Visible: Pugin鈥檚 Health and Pugin鈥檚 Gothic.鈥� True Principles: Journal of the Pugin Society 4, no. 2 (2010鈥�11): 122鈥�33.
- Macdonell, Cameron. 鈥溾�業f You Want To, You Can Cure Me鈥�: Duplicity and the Edwardian Patron.鈥� Journal of the Society for the Study of Architecture in Canada 31, no. 2 (2006): 23鈥�36.
Media
- Macdonell, Cameron, dir. Melencolia XII. In production.
- Macdonell, Cameron, Shuning Xie, and Slyfox Web Design. Ghost-Storeys.com. 2024.