CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Across the breadth of cultural, environmental and material concerns we invite examination of the intersections of architectural history with heritage scholarship and practice. Complex relationships exist between history and heritage, and also memory and narrative, with regard to notions of identity and authenticity as they are bound up with the past, present and future.
This is nowhere more evident than in the context of global phenomena such as Brexit, or by contrast in the powerful Uluru Statement from the Heart. David Lowenthal’s declaration that history may be usurped by memory and nostalgia because of the personal dimension and immediacy that they bring to matters of the past highlights an opportunity for architectural history. Buildings, landscapes and the artefacts associated with them provide tangible material historical record through which stories are found and told. Moreover, history has benefitted from the myriad more ways of accessing, understanding and disseminating knowledge of past times, places, artefacts and cultures.
We pose the counterfactual ‘what if’ questions about how architectural histories – of the past or in future – might sound or look if recast from marginal points of view (indigenous, migrant, gender, class and so on); or if editorial choices responded to different criteria (what to include and what to leave out). Conjecturing ‘what if’ through a hypothetical recasting or negating of an event enables appraisal of its relative historical and future importance.
In turn, we ask, might the ‘what if’ or ‘what next’ questions equip architectural history with additional evaluative tools to support its (future) disciplinary inquiry?
We invite original papers by individual or joint authors and/or Round Table sessions considering or expanding on topic such as:
