EAHN 2021 – Interest Group Calls for Contributions

Wednesday 2 June 2021, 13.30-16.00, online
https://eahn2021.eca.ed.ac.uk
 
The following EAHN Interest Groups have open calls for contributions for their side events at the next EAHN Biannual Conference. Please contact group coordinators directly with questions or to submit a proposal and note the deadlines for each group.

Architecture & Environment Group

Architectural Histories, Environmental Theories / Architectural Theories, Environmental Histories
Coordinated by: Dalal Alsayer, Megan Eardley, Sophie Hochhäusl, Torsten Lange
The aim of this group is to examine the “environment” both as a central object of inquiry within architectural history and as a methodological framework that connects fields such as environmental and landscape history, geography, histories of science and technology, cultural studies, and anthropology. We aim to develop a series of interests, inquires, and questions that explore the relationship between architecture and environment not as primarily dialectic, but as continuous and dynamic; understanding both as densely interwoven with each other, whilst maintaining that, despite these continuities, their relationship is never even and thus remains politically charged.
During the 2021 meeting, we will discuss new reading groups and opportunities for methodological, grant writing, and publication workshops. If you would like to propose a new reading group or workshop, please email Megan Eardley (meardely@princeton.edu) and Dalal Musaed Alsayer(dalal.alsayer@ku.edu.kw) with a short description.

Building Word Image Group

Architecture, not Building: Actors at the Margins
Coordinated by: Anne Hultzsch, Catalina Mejía Moreno
What were to happen, if we wrote the histories of buildings, cities, and sites without considering how and by whom they were designed? By focusing on the visual and verbal reception and (re)appropriation of the built, this roundtable of the Building Word Image Group seeks to shed light on groups or individuals acting at and from ‘the margins’, excluded by a variety of norms from the architectural sphere. We thus propose a conceptual shift, from a disciplinary focus on the design process and on the designed object, to approaches that include explorations of word and image as a means of architectural and knowledge production.
More precisely, this roundtable invites participants to explore the ways in which practices of word and image, as opposed to practices of building, have enabled marginalised actors – defined by geography, gender, race, class, culture, society, etc. – to contribute to architectural cultures. Taking a global and cross-period stance, we ask whether one can uncover unknown protagonists (singular or collective) within architecture who – through word and image, or visual and verbal practices – have shaped spatial and built environments in equal measure to those wielding the draftsperson or the critic’s pen? How did such marginal actors and practices establish themselves as part of the architectural sphere? Did they seek acknowledgement and recognition within architecture, or not? More generally, can we expand architectural history, and the understanding of how buildings, cities, and spaces have been produced and consumed, if we place such marginal practices of word and image on a par with the design of these sites? What would be the consequences of placing the actors and their often-overlooked practices on a par with the ‘architect’ and with ‘architecture’?
We call for short provocations, stimulating the debate on how we can widen, even breach, the borders of architectural production through word and image. We invite object-based presentations of 10 minutes on actors and/or practices marginal to the architectural field, from letter writing, painting, journalism, or sculpture, to political pamphleteering, educational writing, printmaking, or household writing. Contributors will present outputs of these practices and demonstrate how these accessed, extended, or reflected on architectural production from the margins.
Please send short proposals of max. 200 words plus one image / one quote to hultzsch@arch.ethz.ch and c.mejiamoreno@sheffield.ac.uk by 12 April 2021.

Grants Collaborations Group

Experiences in Finding Funding
Coordinated by: Lucía C. Pérez Moreno
In the current European context, raising funds for research is essential to conduct high quality research. As a network, the EAHN interest group on Grant Collaborations wants to create a platform to share experiences with collaborative grants. We welcome presentations of EAHN members that have applied (and won or not) to both European and international grants and would be willing to share this experience with other colleagues. The objectives of this initiative are several:  1) to present ongoing research projects that have an interest to attract new junior researchers; 2) to explain topics of research on which a senior scholar is looking for partners in order to apply for grants; and, 3) to critically analyze the topics of the different European Programs (ERC, Horizon2020-Societal Challenges, EACEA-Europe for Citizens, Creative Europe, etc.) and the possibilities of architectural historians to conduct research through them. Proposals for 10-minute presentations are welcome. This interest group is also interested in innovative ideas for dialogues in this topic.
Please send 200-word abstracts and a short bio to lcperez@unizar.es by 31 March 2021.

Housing Group

Housing: Keywords for an Architectural Manifesto
Coordinated by: Gaia Caramellino, Filippo De Pieri
Since the 1980s, responsibility for housing provision around the globe has largely been transferred from the state and public actors to the market and dwellers themselves. In the process, “architecture” as cultural product has become framed as distinct from “housing” as a socio-economic need, not only among the general public, but among policy makers, planners, architects, and historians. The workshop aims at recasting architecture as a crucial aspect of housing provision, investigating ways to overcome the conceptual divorce of architecture from social and economic narratives of housing. Toward this aim, workshop participants will critically analyze a set of terms used to discuss the architecture, economics, and politics of housing. The language we use—whether “model,” “unit,” or “housing” itself—embeds normative assumptions related to all three realms. Language frames not only how scholars and professionals evaluate the past and the present, but also how they envision the future. The workshop thus seeks to identify the origins, evolution, and contemporary use of key terms in order to develop a better understanding of how we might reframe the entanglements of design, politics, practices and economics in a historical perspective.
Participants are asked to select a single term through which to present their research. Terms can deal with different scales and can address typologies, policies, methods, actors, practices. In the workshop, 5-minute statements will be followed by a discussion.
Please send brief proposals (a term, a max. 200-word abstract and a brief CV) to gaia.caramellino@gmail.com by 30 March 2021.

Urban Representations Group

The Next Ten: Mission, Visions and Goals for the Urban Representations Group
Coordinated by: Anat Falbel, Miriam Paeslack, Nancy Stieber, Jeffrey Cohen
After ten years in existence, we wish to reconsider our group’s mission and scope. We will request brief presentations on possible future orientations of the group, followed by general discussion and creation of a committee to draft a new mission statement. We warmly invite interested EAHN members to join us in re-shaping the group’s scope and direction.
Please contact Anat Falbel, Miriam Paeslack, Nancy Stieber, and Jeffrey Cohen if you are interested in participating in the meeting.