Making architectural history through the prism of environmental and decolonial issues
Faire l’histoire de l’architecture au prisme des questions environnementales et décoloniales
Abstract
From historiography to the epistemology of history, what are the "new problems, new approaches, new objects" - taking up and updating the postures of Pierre Nora and Jacques Le Goff - new periodizations, new geographical areas of architectural history? This symposium aims to clarify the complexity of these narratives, which are both plural and situated, in order to better understand the methodological questions they raise and the contemporary issues they illuminate. It will question these new data and make them resonate with approaches that claim to be postcolonial and/or environmental. It will examine the epistemological implications of the use of certain notions, such as the anthropocene, and their mobilization in the field of architectural research.
Announcement
Abstract
In an undoubtedly cyclical process, numerous recent publications invite us to "rethink" or "revisit" historiography[1], seeking to go beyond monographic approaches, criticism of architectural objects and the presentation of architectural movements. Their aim is to apprehend the architectural field through the prism of major global societal concerns within the late, complex modernities (whatever prefixes are often attached to them).[2]
For almost two decades now, postcolonial[3] (or even decolonial) studies and environmental studies have penetrated the discipline with force, to the point where some evoke the emergence of "new" or "alternative" histories[4] . It now seems necessary to take a reflective and critical look at architecture in the light of current concerns.
From historiography to the epistemology of history, what are the "new problems, new approaches, new objects" - taking up and updating the postures of Pierre Nora and Jacques Le Goff - new periodizations, new geographical areas of architectural history?
This symposium aims to clarify the complexity of these narratives, which are both plural and situated, in order to better understand the methodological questions they raise and the contemporary issues they illuminate. It will question these new data and make them resonate with approaches that claim to be postcolonial and/or environmental. It will examine the epistemological implications of the use of certain notions, such as the anthropocene[5], and their mobilization in the field of architectural research. In what way, where and how might environmental and decolonial thinking come together to encourage the exploration of uncharted aspects of history? Malcom Ferdinand invites us to think about "decolonial ecology" from a Caribbean perspective, using decolonial critique and struggles against cultural and racist discrimination as a lever for environmental struggles[6] . Given that modernity is intrinsically colonial in its relationship with the world, and is driven by a Eurocentric universalism, this symposium will also examine the possibility of certain architectural modernities being postcolonial, or even decolonial. Current historical approaches that challenge Eurocentrism and attempt to redefine certain fundamentals of the architectural discipline - in the diversity of its meanings, scales and modalities - will be at the heart of the symposium.
The symposium also intends to explore the impact these new postures may have on the relationship between, on the one hand, attempts to rewrite great histories using a “Braudelian” long-term approach[7] - with works that are also "mainstream"[8] - and, on the other hand, examples of more micro-historical approaches[9] . This dialectic - typical of historical disciplines in general - is perhaps more specific to the field of environmental history.
In our view, the new decolonial and environmental histories represent an opportunity to reaffirm the role of the historian as a committed intellectual: in particular, for the history of architecture, they provide an opportunity to reconsider certain meanings of the architectural discipline, notably the notion of the project, and the architect's knowledge, practices and forms of action in the "present time".
Areas of reflection
1 - Postcolonial or decolonial histories of architecture
A growing number of publications attempt to write a history of architecture, cities and territories from a global perspective (in a dynamic akin to the "global turn")[10]. They highlight the transnational movement of people and ideas through non-unilateral exchanges, using concepts such as "cultural transfer" and "creolization", coined by Michel Espagne and Edouard Glissant respectively[11], and inviting us to observe postures that fall somewhere between borrowing and imposition[12]. At the turn of the 21st century, Dipesh Chakrabarty called for the "provincialization of Europe"[13] and Sibel Bozdoğan for a rethinking of conceptions of architectural history through the prism of the "postcolonial challenge", i.e., to open up and decentralize the canons of history, without lapsing into identity-based essentialization.[14]
Since then, numerous works have questioned the relationship with the "Other" and the writing of "another history of the world", overturning obsolete oppositions between North and South, between Eurocentric universalism and recognition of local specificities and plural otherness[15]. Ezra Akcan, for instance, identified two approaches - one poststructuralist based on the work of Gülsüm Nalbaritoğlu and the other humanist based on the work of Sibel Bozdoğan - in the introduction of postcolonial approaches in the history of architecture[16]. For our part, through the contributions of this international symposium we hope, on the one hand, to open up the field of reflection for understanding the temporal, spatial and cultural oversights, erasures and unthinking of architectural history, to contribute to the writing of other histories of architecture. On the other hand, our goal is to begin to draw up the critical and methodological cartographies of histories that endeavor to make explicit who is speaking and from where.
Our aim is to explore the possibility of a radical decolonization of historiography.
2 - Environmental histories of architecture
In recent decades, environmental history, which aims to explore "the multiple dimensions of man's interactions with nature”[17], has become a research field in its own right. This field, whose boundaries are porous and constantly being called into question, has a major influence on many other disciplines. If "urban history, which goes against the grain of a history in pieces, is in itself an exercise in synthesis"[18], environmental history is even more ambitious, proposing spatial and temporal framings that are unusual in their scope. Climate change is a reminder that the urban question goes hand in hand with an ecological question, and that it is no longer enough to think about the city "in" its territory, whether large or small, but that this territory has become the entire planet. What's more, the ecological challenge calls into question production methods in the building industry, one of the most polluting sectors, and requires a transformation of the world of architecture and its practices. This makes multidisciplinary approaches all the more necessary. The notion of environment, where natural data and human artificiality intermingle, is taking its place at the heart of the architectural project and redefining it. The history of architecture cannot escape this new interpretative paradigm. The major question to be addressed by this symposium is: what does environmental history have to do with the history of architecture?
Environmental history has undoubtedly focused attention on new "actors" such as the earth, raw materials, energy resources, materials and living or inanimate non-humans. First of all, the colloquium would like to investigate to which extent this shift enables us to better understand the relationships between architecture and "what surrounds it" over time, paying close attention to the chosen vocabulary (nature, milieu, Umwelt, environment, etc.). We would also like to reflect on what practicing architects, historians and theorists understand by the word "environment", whose meaning changes based on the historical moment, in a process of co-construction of societies and their contexts, avoiding a major risk: that of ideologizing the notion of environment, too often mobilized as a simplistic and reductive interpretative key, beyond specific temporal and geographical contexts.
Crossroads
Proposals for intervention may fall in two lines of thinking, opening up to cross-cutting topics and approaches. As shown by several works - such as Conservation in Africa. People, Policies and Practice (1987)[19], through to more recent research on so-called tropical architectures, such as A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture: Colonial Networks, Nature and Technoscience (2016)[20] - postcolonial and environmental histories are closely linked.
Practical information
- Dates: April 9-10-11, 2025.
- Venue: Paris Institute for Advanced Study
- Conference schedule: 3 days, with 2 sessions per day. Each day will be introduced by a guest lecture. The sessions will be themed (by axis and/or transversal), and will consist of 4/5 presentations followed by a discussion.
Application procedure and deadlines
- Conference language: English and French
Abstract submission: January 15, 2025
- Proposals for contributions should be sent to ieanouvelleshistoires@gmail.com : They should be written in English or French. Each proposal must specify the theme and include a very short scientific biography of the author, a title and a 500-word abstract. The abstract will be used to assess the relevance of the proposal, and should include a description of the problem, methodology, corpus/sources/field and bibliographical references.
- Response to selected candidates: early February 2025
- First draft of article sent: April 2, 2025 : Text between 2,000 and 3,000 words, in English or French, outlining the oral presentation and the general structure of the article to come. It will be a prerequisite for the drafting of articles selected for publication in the conference proceedings. Precise editorial standards will be sent at a later date.
Steering committee
Diane Aymard (AAU/CRENAU-Nantes), Federico Ferrari (ENSAPM-ACS/AUSser-PSL), Marilena Kourniati (ENSAPLV-AHTTEP/AUSser), Christelle Lecoeur (ENSAPM-PSL), Marilia Macedo Espina (ENSAPM-ACS/AUSser-PSL), Sophie Paviol (ENSAG-AE&CC).
Scientific Committee
Lucia Allais (Columbia University), Marco Assennato (ENSAPM- ACS/AUSser -PSL), Diane Aymard (AAU/CRENAU-Nantes), Paul Bouet (ENSA Paris Est-OCS/AUSser-Université Gustave Eiffeil), Federico Ferrari (ENSAPM- ACS/AUSser -PSL), Ariela Katz (ENSAPM- ACS/AUSser -PSL), Marilena Kourniati (ENSAPLV-AHTTEP/AUSser), Johan Lagae (University of Ghent), Guillemette Morel Journel (ENSAPM-ACS/AUSser-PSL), Sophie Paviol (ENSAG-AE&CC), Filippo De Pieri (Politecnico di Torino), Daniel Sherer (Princeton University School of Architecture/Università di Ferrara).
Notes
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Tom Avermaete, Véronique Paeuw, Léa-Catherine Szacka, and Hans Teerds (eds.), Critical Regionalism Revisited, OASE, no. 103, 2019; Maristella Casciato, Daniel E. Coslett, and Vikramaditya (eds.), Rethinking Global Modernism. Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial, Abingdon/Oxon, Routledge, 2022; Elie G. Haddad and David RYind (eds.), A Critical History of Contemporary Architecture, 1960-2010, Farnham, Ashgate, 2014.
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Fredric Jameson, Le Postmodernisme ou la logique culturelle du capitalisme tardif, Paris, Beaux-arts de Paris Éditions, 2007 [Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1991].
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Sibel Bozdogan, "Architectural History in Professional Education: Reflections on Postcolonial Challenges to the Modern Survey," Journal of Architectural Education, no. 4, vol. 52, May 1999, pp. 207-215; Lu Duanfang (ed.), Third World Modernism. Architecture, Development and Identity, New York, Routledge, 2011; Felipe Hernandez, Bhabha for Architects, London, Routledge, 2010.
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See the program of the lecture series "Nouvelles histoires" organized by Paul Bouet, Fanny Lopez, and Frédérique Mocquet at ENSA Paris-Est from March 1 to May 15, 2022: https://www.paris-est.archi.fr/agenda/cycle-des-lecons-du-mardi-2021-2022-s2.
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For the concept of the Anthropocene, see Christophe Bonneuil, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, L’événement Anthropocène. La Terre, l’Histoire et nous, Paris, Seuil, 2013; for the concept of urban revolution and its questioning, see David Graeber, David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, London, Allen Lane, 2021 (French ed.: Au commencement était... Une nouvelle histoire de l’humanité, Paris, Les liens qui libèrent, 2021).
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Malcom Ferdinand, Une écologie décoloniale. Penser l’écologie depuis le monde caribéen, Paris, Seuil, 2019.
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As an example: Barnabas Calder, Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency, London, Pelican Books, 2021; Hans Ibelings, Modern Architecture: A Planetary Warming History, Amsterdam/Montreal, The Architecture Observer, 2023.
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Philippe Rahm, Histoire naturelle de l’architecture : comment le climat, les épidémies et l’énergie ont façonné la ville et les bâtiments, Paris, Pavillon de l’Arsenal, 2020.
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As an example: Daniel A. Barber, Modern Architecture and Climate: Design Before Air Conditioning, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2020; Jane Haffner (ed.), Landscapes of Housing: Design and Planning in the History of Environmental Thought, Abingdon, Routledge, 2022; Kiel Moe, Unless: The Seagram Building Construction Ecology, Barcelona, Actar, 2021.
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Kenneth Frampton (ed.), World Architecture, 1900-2000: A Critical Mosaic [10 volumes], Vienna, Springer, 1999-2000; Tom Avermaete, Michelangelo Sabanino, The Global Turn. Six Journeys of Architecture and the City, 1945-1989, Nai010 Publishers, 2024 [forthcoming]; Richard Ingersoll, Spiro Kostof, World Architecture. A Cross-Cultural History, New York/Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013.
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Edouard Glissant, Traité du Tout-Monde, Paris, Gallimard, 1997; Michel Espagne, Les Transferts culturels franco-allemands, Paris, PUF, 1999.
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Stephen V. Ward, "Re-Examining the International Diffusion of Planning" [chapter 3], in Robert Freestone (ed.), Urban Planning in a Changing World. The Twentieth Century Experience, London, Routledge, 2000, pp. 40-60; Mercedes Volait and Joe Nasr (eds.), Urbanisme : Imported or Exported?, Chichester, Wiley, 2003.
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Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2000.
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Sibel Bozdogan, "Architectural History in Professional Education: Reflections on Postcolonial Challenges to the Modern Survey," Journal of Architectural Education, no. 4, vol. 52, May 1999, pp. 207-215.
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Zeynep Celik, "Cultural Intersections: Re-visioning Architecture and the City in the Twentieth Century," in Richard Koshalek (ed.), At the End of the Century. One Hundred Years of Architecture, New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1998, pp. 190-227; Philippe Colin, Lissel Quiroz, Pensées décoloniales: une introduction aux théories critiques d’Amériques Latines, Paris, La Découverte, 2023; Anthony D. King, Colonial Urban Development (Culture, Social Power and Environment), London, Routledge, 1976; Pierre Singaravélou, Fabrice Argounès, Camille Faucourt, Une autre histoire du monde, Paris/Marseille, Gallimard/Mucem, 2023.
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Ezra Akcan, "Postcolonial Theories in Architecture," in Elie G. Haddad and David RYind (eds.), A Critical History of Contemporary Architecture, 1960-2010, New York, Routledge, 2016 (1st ed. 2014), pp. 115-136.
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Carolyn Merchant, The Columbian Guide to American Environmental History, New York, Columbia University Press, 2002.
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Philippe Descola, Par-delà nature et culture, Paris, Gallimard, 2005.
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Jean-Luc Pinol, Introduction, in Histoire de l’Europe Urbaine: Tome 1, La ville antique, Paris, Seuil, 2011. For the role of the urban environment in environmental history, see Geneviève Massard-Guilbaud, "Pour une histoire environnementale de l’urbain," Histoire urbaine, no. 18, 2007, pp. 5-21.
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David Anderson, Richard Grove (eds.), Conservation in Africa. People, Policies and Practice, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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Jiat-Hwee Chang, A Genealogy of Tropical Architecture: Colonial Networks, Nature and Technoscience, London, Routledge, 2016.
Places
- École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture (ENSA) Paris-Malaquais - Université PSL - 17 rue de Bonaparte
Paris, France (75006)
Event attendance modalities
Full on-site event
Attached files
Keywords
- histoires de l'architecture, histoire environnementale, pensée décoloniale
Contact(s)
- Sophie Paviol
courriel : ieanewhistories [at] gmail [dot] com - Diane Aymard
courriel : ieanewhistories [at] gmail [dot] com - Federico Ferrari
courriel : ieanewhistories [at] gmail [dot] com - Marilena Kourniati
courriel : marilena [dot] kourniati [at] paris-lavillette [dot] archi [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Making architectural history through the prism of environmental and decolonial issues », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Tuesday, November 26, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/12rgj
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