Introduction
Building on the success of recent years, SAHANZ's XIXth conference is
the largest body of research on the history and theory of architecture
yet presented in Australia and New Zealand. This volume contains over
one hundred papers by members and colleagues from Australasia, Asia, Europe
and America. The Conference Committee set out to offer a broad and inclusive
forum for scholars, seeking contributions in areas previously under-represented
such as interiors, landscape and the study of indigenous building traditions.
In these areas and in the on-going focus of many members on the history
of modern architecture in the region, we see an overall interest in how
historical change is experienced and conceptualised. The conference theme
'Additions to architectural history' refers to this expanded vision of
the role for the Society's annual conference, and it also refers to some
of the issues of disciplinarity raised by this expansion. In the call
for papers we asked contributors to consider not only what they might
add to the store of knowledge of architecture, but how architecture is
articulated with a world of knowledge and practice. What is conjoined
and articulated when one writes, for instance, as many of our contributors
have, of 'architecture and memory'? This is a relation we have sought
to open around the concept of 'additions', and the use of the '+' symbol,
which has produced the following conjunctions: Architecture + Science,
Architecture + Arts and Crafts, Architecture + Politics, Architecture
+ Gender/Representation, Architecture + Landscapes of Production, Architecture
+ Memory, Architecture +Antipodean modernity, Architecture + the Interior,
Architecture + Housing, Architecture + Museums, Architecture + 19C/Technology,
Architecture + Building Traditions.
The concept of 'additions' leads to further speculations: Are these
the points at which the discipline engages with a world from which it
is autonomous, or the places where we need supplementation and assistance?
Are these the partnerships with other kinds of thought and practice, or
the unstable borders of a voracious interdisciplinarity? Do we add to
architecture the things to which we aspire or the things that cause us
discomfort?
The contributors to ADDITIONS offer insights on the valency of architecture
- whether this is a discussion of issues, persons, or periods which have
become inescapable and perennial topics, or provocative new conjunctions
through which to understand architecture. The conference's four keynote
speakers also offer a broad vision of scholarship in architectural history.
Hilde Heynen revisits the crucial role that the concept of utopia played
in 20th century modernism. Esa Laaksonen examines Alvar Aalto's Viipuri
Library as an historian and as a conservation architect. Jane Rendell
discusses the textual production of architecture in research and critical
practice. Andrew Benjamin, looks at how we might conceptualise the differences
between history, theory and criticism of architecture.
We thank the keynote speakers and all the participants in ADDITIONS for
their insightful contributions to architectural history.
John Macarthur & Antony Moulis, editors
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