Farming Architecture Beyond the Farm
Session at Society of Architectural Historians Conference 2026 (Mexico City, 15-19 Apr 26) SAH, Mexico City, Apr 15–19, 2026
Deadline: Jun 5, 2025
We invite paper proposals for the session Farming Architecture Beyond the Farm
The agricultural sector has gained momentum in recent years among architectural historians for several reasons. Scholars have investigated the mechanisms of subordination used to colonize lands and people; they have historicized the intersection of architecture with scientific and political visions aimed at combating global hunger; they have applied historical architectural trajectories to investigate models of monoagricultural economies (grain, sugar, coffee, cocoa, salt, mulberry, wheat, oats, rice, corn, tobacco) that, being still responsible for a high percentage of CO2 emissions worldwide, are undergoing processes of regenerative farming. Additionally, they have examined the instrumentality of land as a mechanism that perpetuates relationships of power. In so doing, “farming architecture” has been limited to the soil and spatialized as an infrastructure aimed at facilitating the production, storage, and trade of extracted resources and their post-produced goods across contexts (silos, mills, warehouses, depots, markets, ports). Seeking to broaden and enrich ongoing discourse, this session invites contributions that explore alternative architectural historiographies “beyond the farm.” It aims to investigate the crucial intertwining between the extraction of agricultural resources and the impact of the corresponding economies’ accumulation of wealth on the built environment in contexts and circumstances far removed in space, time, instances, and even forms from what is usually meant by farming architecture. The panel seeks papers that move beyond plantation lands and extraction sites, as well as beyond known colonial practices, contexts, and temporalities.
We are particularly interested in papers that follow the farming money over the long durée–from early modernity to the late nineteenth century in a global context—to unveil where farming economies affected the built environment in less-evident circumstances. Papers may highlight overlooked actors, agencies, taxation and labor practices that were instrumental in building, supporting, and promoting the reification of farming without ever touching the soil.
Abstracts must be under 300 words, and the title cannot exceed 65 characters, including spaces and punctuation. Abstracts and titles must follow the Chicago Manual of Style. The submission should also include a two-page CV in PDF format.
Submissions and further info: https://www.sah.org/
For inquiries, please contact:
Dr. Angela Gigliotti (ETH Zürich, Chair of History and Theory of Urban Design) – gigliotti@arch.ethz.ch
Dr. Fabio Gigone (ETH Zürich, Chair of History and Theory of Architecture) – gigone@arch.ethz.ch