The Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) promotes standards of excellence in the field of architectural history research with a focus on Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region.

SAHANZ acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands on which our members practice.

Events

Events

Events

ABSENCE

Refereeing is underway for SAHANZ-AUHPH 2026, “Absence,” being hosted by the University of Melbourne from 7 to 9 December. Do keep an eye out for an invitation to referee, and please help the organising team by contributing to this process in good time. Registrations are open. For more information, see …

Events

Next SAHANZ PhD Colloquium: EoI

We are calling for Expressions of Interest to host the next PhD Colloquium, to take place later in 2026. We imagine this being an online event. Doctoral candidates might consider taking the lead on it themselves. It would take a committee of 3-4 people to run it, with support from …

News

2027 SAHANZ Conference: Advance Notice

At the AGM in Launceston, it was announced that the 43rd annual SAHANZ conference will be hosted by Deakin University, Geelong, late in 2027. Mirjana Lozanovska, Elsie Telford and colleagues will be developing a call for papers addressing themes of Land/Country/Whenua, with more detail to be provided in due course. 

December 23, 2025

Events

Where Do We Draw the Line? Architectural History and Theory in the Digital Age – SAHANZ PhD Colloquium 2025

The 2026 SAHANZ PhD Colloquium abstracts is now available for download.

Events

Extremities: South, East, North, West of Architectural History

Congratulations and many thanks to Dave Beynon, Julian Worrall, Helen Norrie, Andrew Steen and Freya Su for a wonderful 41st annual SAHANZ conference, “Extremities,” in Launceston earlier this month!

Drawing entitled "Neo-Gaya" by Rui Shen Chong, 2022

Events

Islands

Proceedings from Islands, the 40th Annual Annual SAHANZ Conference are now available on our site.

Publications

Publications

News

CfP: Fabrications Guest Edited Issue

The Society of Architectural Historians, Australia & New Zealand invites proposals for a guest-edited issue of its journal, Fabrications, to be published in June 2028 (volume 38, no. 2). The guest editor(s) will work to realise the issue in collaboration with the journal’s appointed editors Susan Holden and Isabel Rousset, and …

Pages

Calls for papers

Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand —

37.3 Decolonisation x Architecture – January 29, 2027
37.2 Architectures of Solidarity – August 21, 2026

An Island

Media

Fabrications

35.2 (2026)

The current housing affordability crisis in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand is well documented across all forms of popular media, and its causes and implications also well documented across scholarly discourse in economics, planning, and the social sciences. The situation is mirrored globally with decreasing access to housing in other economically prosperous and developing nations alike. Yet, the trope of a “housing crisis” is far from new and has a longer history that can be traced back to nineteenth-century reformist discourse on the conditions of Europe’s industrial workers. Since Henry Roberts presented model homes for workers at the Great Exhibition of 1851, architecture has long played a visible role in shaping housing debate.This special issue called for papers that document historical tensions between architecture, housing, and social politics. We asked: how can an architectural perspective illuminate the social history of housing? How has the relationship between architecture and society been historically imagined through housing? The papers we received are inevitably diverse, frequently crossing boundaries between architectural history and political, social, construction, and planning histories. Some are geared more intentionally towards praxis, using history as a lens to inform current housing policy, while others use housing as a means to shed light on larger historical questions, particularly concerning migration and national identity. All the papers expose new narratives. Some bring previously marginalised geographies (Adelaide and Brisbane) into focus, while others revisit iconic plans (Le Corbusier in Chandigarh) from the perspective of previously marginalised actors. They also highlight the oftentimes highly complex nature of interaction between public and private institutions and actors that have historically guided housing provision.
Taylor and Francis

Media

Fabrications

35.1 (2026)

The first issue of Volume 35 of Fabrications is an open issue. Serendipitously, all five papers featured here deal in some way with projects “tied up” (to borrow from the title of David Nichols’ paper), whether by bureaucratic obstruction, financial necessity, social conflict, or a combination of all three. Many of the architects featured – Marion Mahony Griffin, Walter Burley Griffin, Russell Ellis, Hugh Buhrich, Eva Buhrich, Joseph Allen Stein, and Minoru Yamasaki – will be familiar to Fabricationsreaders, yet rather than taking a leading role in the histories presented, they are cast as players in a larger field of actors, their ambitions frequently frustrated by bureaucrats, developers, clients, and various publics. It is a good reminder that the lives of architectural projects cannot stand alone as single acts of intention but are bound to the complexities of policy and profit, and the passage of time.In his paper, David Nichols returns to the myth of the Griffins’ involvement in the suburb of Castlecrag, Sydney, this time from the perspective of its most dissatisfied investor, Charles Cerutty. Nichols shows how the architects’ vision of developing Castlecrag into an artistic community among natural bushland came into intractable conflict with the commercial priorities of its financial supporters. Against some of the egalitarian myths of modernism, Georgina Downey’s paper on the development of the elite suburb of Springfield, South Australia, casts the arrival of modernism in the state in a new light, as she documents the efforts of modernists in Springfield to walk a “creative tightrope between designing homes as high-status investments, and designing homes that would signify progression and innovation.” The paradox of modernist prestige emerges again in Rowan Gower’s paper on the development of the Australian Chancery in Tokyo in 1960, which sees, within the apparatus of government, the representational needs of Australian diplomacy to project a sophisticated image abroad come up against fiscal considerations and bureaucratic wrangling. Joss Kiely, in his paper, returns to his research on Yamasaki, this time using the architect’s work in Hawai`i to weigh up the successes and failures of a transformed architectural profession, which, trading local needs for tourist dollars, expanded to new geopolitical territories in the post-war period.More of an outlier in this collection is Catherine Lassen’s paper on Eve and Hugh Buhrich’s own house in Castlecrag, where their unique position as both architects and clients afforded more opportunity to realise their ideals over a prolonged period of tinkering. The element of “conflict” here is embedded in Eva’s architectural journalism, which, as Lassen shows, evolved from a commitment to mass production (shaped by her early years in Europe) to a more sympathetic accommodation of the crafted object (shaped by her reading of the 1972 New York City exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape.) Lassen weaves Eva’s changing ideals into a close analysis of the modifications made to her house – perhaps realising a version of utopia in Castlecrag that proved more elusive for the Griffins.The issue also features an array of reports and book reviews curated by Renee Miller-Yeaman, including a report on the 2024 SAHANZ PhD symposium. The richness and diversity of topics presented at the symposium, we hope, will continue to fuel the growth of Fabrications in the future.
Taylor and Francis

News

CfP: Fabrications

Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia & New Zealand invites papers for Fabrications issue (Vol. 37 No. 3) on the theme of “Decolonisation x Architecture.” The deadline for full papers is January 29, 2027, and the publication is scheduled for November 2027. 

News

News

News

2026 Futuna Lecture Series

Futuna Chapel Trust is delighted to announce the 2026 Futuna Lecture Series, featuring acclaimed Australian documentary filmmaker Catherine Hunter and architect, author and Glenn Murcutt collaborator Nick Sissons. As an added highlight, this year’s lecture series will be accompanied by a special programme of documentary screenings in Auckland, Christchurch and …

September 3, 2026

Futuna Chapel Trust Logo

News

2026 SAH Virtual Conference

The Society of Architectural Historians hosts its 2026 virtual conference from 24 to 26 September, via Zoom. For more information, see here. For participants from our region, click through.

September 3, 2026

News

Penelope Visiting Professor of Architectural History at the University of Sydney

Professor Swati Chattopadhyay will be in Sydney in October as part of her appointment as the Penelope Visiting Professor of Architectural History at the University of Sydney. In advance of the full public announcement of the programme of events, which you will see in an upcoming SAHANZ newsletter, please use this link to …

September 3, 2026

Professor Swati Chattopadhyay

News

Newly Published

Keep your eyes out for the following book: Mohsen Foroughi: Iranian Modernism and the Architect as Government Agent, by SAHANZ Treasurer Peyman Akhgar and published by Bloomsbury.More details here

September 3, 2026

Book Cover Image

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