What if? What next? Speculations on History’s Futures

The 37^th Annual SAHANZ Conference, 18-25 November 2020 in Perth, Australia, and online.

Hosted by the Department of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, School of Design, the University of Western Australia and convened by Kate Hislop and Hannah Lewi.

Challenges to the transmission of historical knowledge in architectural education today highlight a potential shift in expertise that may ultimately impact upon the production of architecture, as well as a broader understanding of the built environment, which warrants interrogating. At the same time, increasing appetite for the preservation and repurposing of built fabric feeds a growing heritage sector (and associated tourism industry) that offers opportunity for architectural history’s contribution insofar as its basis in inquiry informs knowledge, interpretation and evaluation of buildings and places. The 2020 SAHANZ Conference called for broad consideration of the prospects for architectural history in relation to the endurance and/or transformation of architecture as a discipline and profession.