The 39th annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand
The 16th conference of the Australasian Urban History / Planning History Group
School of Architecture and Planning, University of Auckland, 24-27 November 2022
Call for Papers: Abstracts due by 28 February 2022
Abstracts are invited for Ngā Pūtahitanga / Crossings: A Joint Conference of SAHANZ and the Australasian UHPH Group.
With long-shared disciplinary interests in the design of cities and urban areas, architects and planners have an intersecting (crossing) lineage through numerous historical figures, movements and events. Historically, many individuals practised as both architects and town/city planners. As the discipline of planning evolved, the two professions diverged, yet remained entwined in a relationship of confluence and convergence. In various places, tensions emerged. Some cast planning as bureaucratic regulation while others saw architecture as overly concerned with aesthetics. The term urban design was increasingly used to describe the form of practice that architects had originally understood town planning to be, and planners also, but as the public realm dimension of a broader policy mandate. The heritage discipline, too, matured – with the retention of heritage value becoming an enticement for some built environment professionals and a burden for others. Class, ethnicity, gender, migration and inequality have all compounded the diversity of experience, even as common challenges have emerged, from the hegemony of private property rights and the functional dominance of engineering, to the imperatives of environmental sustainability and reconciliation of socio-cultural injustices.
Aptly hosted by a School of Architecture and Planning, this first joint conference of SAHANZ and the UHPH Group will explore matters of common interest.
Organizers seek papers that examine historical moments demonstrating overlap, collaboration, tension or dispute between built environment disciplines, including architecture, planning, urban design, landscape architecture and heritage conservation. This may include:
- Figures, movements and/or events that have a place within both architectural history and urban/planning history;
- Groups and individuals who have interacted across two or more built environment disciplines;
- Large-scale visions or policies and individual projects built under them;
- Planning processes that have enabled some projects to be realised and ensured the curtailment of others;
- Projects that have challenged planning policies and processes;
- Projects led by architects and/or planners working as developers; and
- Relationships between the disciplines of architecture and planning in tertiary institutions that have taught programmes in both.
Organizers welcome papers from, and beyond, the Asia-Pacific region, and papers that explore Indigenous, alternative or marginalised experiences and practices. Papers that extend to infrastructure and community projects are also welcome.
Open sessions will be available to accommodate papers of relevance to the histories of our disciplines that do not fit under the broad conference umbrella of Ngā Pūtahitanga / Crossings.
At this stage, organizers plan to follow a hybrid conference model, and remain hopeful that a more open global context will allow us to welcome a majority of delegates to Auckland for a full programme including tours, a dinner and other networking opportunities.
More information can be found here.