https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2563-0546
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ABSTRACT
The use of oral history as a method to rewrite the history of modern architecture has intensified in recent years. This essay presents initial reflections of a research project on oral histories of architectural history, not architecture, through interviews with historians of architecture based in Australia and New Zealand, not architects. Acknowledging the contribution of users and clients in constructing new narratives of architecture, I argue that there is also value in recording the stories told by historians of architecture. Their firsthand experiences provide insight into the process of overcoming the geographical remoteness of the discipline in the region, with its intellectual uneasiness and institutional uncertainty. Globally, there are lessons to be learned by emerging scholars from the impact of migration and networks on their career progression. This essay aims to test the value and validity of the oral histories of historians of architecture, to not only better contextualise their own work, but also advance the discipline of the history of architecture through the telling of and listening to their stories. It aims to explore whether the principles and strengths, as well as the shortcomings, of oral history as a methodology in architectural research can be productive in its historiography.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to acknowledge the invaluable comments received following the various conference presentations; specially encouraging were the two anonymous SAHANZ 2021 conference reviewers who sparked the interest to further develop it into this essay. Similarly, the author appreciated the thoughtful feedback offered by the anonymous reviewers of this manuscript, and the work of the editors of Fabrications. Finally, the author would like to thank Anoma Pieris for her suggestions and edits on the manuscript and Alona Nitzan-Shiftan for her insightful comments on just an extended version of the abstract which assisted in clarifying the response to the reviewers’ reports of this manuscript.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Ethical Approval Statement
The research project “The Mental Life of the Architectural Historians in Australia and New Zealand,” was approved by the Sub-Committee Human Research Ethics at the University of Queensland (approval number 2019002512) on 29 October 2019. The project’s transfer application was approved by the Architecture, Building and Planning Human Ethics Advisory Group on 3 March 2020 (ethics ID 2056332). The final report was submitted to and approved by the Office of Research Ethics and Integrity at the University of Melbourne on 20 November 2020.
Notes
1. A work-in-progress version of this essay was presented at the 38th annual conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ), “ULTRA: Positions and Polarities beyond Crisis,” convened by James Curry and David Kroll, 13 November 2021.
2. Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori (Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, 1550, rewritten an enlarged in 1568.
3. Book launch and discussion for Writing Architectural History: Evidence and Narrative in the Twenty-First Century (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021) organised by the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture together with the Aggregate Architectural History Collaborative, 22 April 2022.
4. Dana Arnold and Joanna Sofaer Derevenski, eds., Biographies and Space: Placing the Subject in Art and Architecture (Florence: Taylor and Francis, 2008), 1.
5. Conference booklet, Lost in Conversation. Constructing the Oral History of Modern Architecture (2013), 7. https://janinagosseye.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/programme_booklet_20131025_print.pdf accessed on 18 November 2021.
6. Kevin P. Block, “The New Oral History of Architecture: Review Essay,” The Oral History Review vol. 47, no. 1 (2020): 105.
7. Conference booklet, Lost in Conversation. accessed on 17 July 2021.
8. The conference was held on 1 November 2013 at the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Brisbane. The speakers in order of appearance where Deborah van der Plaat, Silvia Micheli, Louise Stevenson, Julia Gatley, Adele Leah (co-author with Brenda Vale and Nigel Isaacs), Sara Lee, Janina Gosseye (co-author with Robert Riddel), Hannah Lewi and Naomi Stead. Images of the event can be found: https://janinagosseye.com/speaking/lost-in-conversation-constructing-the-oral-history-of-modern-architecture/
9. Call for papers of “Lost in Conversation: Constructing the Oral History of Modern Architecture,” 2013. https://lostinconversationconference.wordpress.com/ accessed on 3 February 2021.
10. “Lost in Conversation: Constructing the Oral History of History of Modern Architecture,” guest-edited by Janina Gosseye, Fabrications vol. 24, no. 2 (2014). The issue includes essays by Naomi Stead, Jesse Adams Stein, Silvia Micheli, Louise Stevenson, Julia Gatley, and Hannah Lewi.
11. Speaking of Buildings. Oral History in Architectural Research edited by Janina Gosseye, Naomi Stead, and Deborah van der Plaat (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2019). Of a total of eighteen contributors to the book including the three editors, only two are men. The editors were awarded a 2018 Graham Foundation Grant for the publication. The series of events and publications that lead to the book are: 1) The session titled “Oral History as Method: Writing a History of Diverse Architectural Voices” was chaired by Gosseye and Stead and held on 8 April 2016. The speakers were Karen Burns, Shundana Yusaf, Jessica Kelly, Sandra Parvu and Alice Sotgia, and Deborah van der Plaat. https://www.sah.org/docs/default-source/conference/sah-2016-pasadena-conference-program-final-version.pdf. accessed on 31 October 2021. 2) Janina Gosseye, Naomi Stead and Deborah van der Plaat, “Alternative Facts: Towards a Theorization of Oral History in Architecture,” 10 February 2017, Brussels. Published in Architecture Thinking across Boundaries. Knowledge Transfers since the 1960s edited by Rajesh Heynickx, Ricardo Costa Agarez and Elke Couchez, 136–148, (London and New York: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2021). 3) Janina Gosseye and Naomi Stead, “Alternative Facts: Towards a Theorization of Oral History in Architecture,” 2017 Toolkit for Today seminar on Oral History, Part I: Methods and Mistakes, Shaugnessy House, Montreal, 4 July 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F62cRfqvDGg accessed on 18 October 2021.
12. http://www.grahamfoundation.org/grantees/5754-speaking-of-buildings-oral-history-in-architectural-research accessed on 31 October 2021.
13. Block, “The New Oral History of Architecture: Review Essay,” 104.
14. As pointed out in Block’s review and as confirmed for this essay, there is no mention of oral history or orality in architecture in Linda N. Groat and David Wang, Architectural Research Methods (Amsterdam and Boston: Wiley, 2013). Note that 2013 is the year of the publication of the second edition.
15. Dana Arnold, Reading Architectural History (London and New York: Routledge, 2002) and Dana Arnold, Elvan Altan Ergut and Belgin Tura Özkaya, eds., Rethinking Architectural Historiography (London and New York: Routledge, 2006). See also Alina Payne, (1999) “Architectural History and the History of Art: A Suspended Dialogue”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 59/60 (1999/2000): 292–299.
16. Mark Jarzombek, “A Prolegomena to Critical Historiography,” Journal of Architectural Education vol. 52, no. 4 (May 1999): 203.
17. Janina Gosseye, “Oral History and Architectural History: Theory, Politics, Method,” SAH 2021 Virtual Conference Roundtable, 26 May 2021. https://www.sah.org/2021-virtual-conference/roundtables/oral-history-and-architectural-history-theory-politics-method. I participated live and accessed the recording on 3 July 2021.
18. The 37th annual conference of SAHANZ, “What if? What next? Speculations on History’s Futures,” convened by Kate Hislop and Hannah Lewi was held on 18–25 November 2020 in Perth and online. What if? what next? was topic proposed before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, which resulted in making the conference more relevant and timelier.
19. Naomi Stead, Deborah van der Plaat, and Janina Gosseye, “Ways to Listen Anew. What Next for Oral History and Architecture?” in Speaking of Buildings, 268–284.
20. For an example of the presentation of the voices of the narrators of the project regarding their involvement with SAHANZ, see Macarena de la Vega de León, “SAHANZ: The Last 15 Years, 2004–2019,” in Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand edited by Kate Hislop and Hannah Lewi, 394–401 (Perth: SAHANZ, 2021).
21. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 2015), xiii.
22. SAH Data Project Report, “Architectural History in the United States: Findings and Trends in Higher Education,” (Chicago: Society of Architectural Historians, 2021).
23. Janina Gosseye, “Editorial. Lost in Conversation: Constructing the Oral History of Modern Architecture,” Fabrications vol. 24, no. 2 (2014): 148.
24. Karen Burns at the symposium “Australasia and the Global Turn in Architectural History,” held online and in person at the University of Melbourne, on 27 April 2022. The Bloomsbury Global Encyclopaedia of Women in Architecture 1960–2015, edited by Lori Brown and Karen Burns (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming).
25. Janina Gosseye, “A Short History of Silence,” introduction to Speaking of Buildings, 19.
26. Naomi Stead, “Architectural Affections. On Some Modes of Conversation in Architecture,” Fabrications vol. 24, no. 2 (2014): 156.
27. Sarah Lynn Lopez, “Oral History and Architectural History: Theory, Politics, Method,” accessed on 15 November 2021.
28. CFP Lost in Conversation: Constructing the Oral History of Modern Architecture, 2013. https://lostinconversationconference.wordpress.com/. accessed on 3 Feb 2021.
29. Julia Gatley, “Life at the Rotherham House in the 1950s and 1960s,” Fabrications vol. 24, no. 2 (2014): 254. Cited from Lynn Abrams, Oral History Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), 10.
30. The 32nd annual conference of SAHANZ, “Architecture, Institutions and Change,” convened by Paul Hogben and Judith O’Callaghan, 7–10 2015, Sydney.
31. The 33rd annual conference of SAHANZ, “Gold,” convened by AnnMarie Brennan and Philip Goad, 6–9 July 2016, Melbourne.
32. The SAHANZ inaugural PhD symposium convened by Alex Brown and Antony Moulis, 27 November 2015, Brisbane.
33. The 4th international meeting of the European Architectural History Network (EAHN), chaired by Kathleen James-Chakraborty, 2–4 June 2016, Dublin.
34. The 34th annual conference of SAHANZ, “Quotation, Quotation: What does History have in Story of Architecture Today?” convened by Gevork Hartoonian and John Ting, 5–7 July 2017, Canberra.
35. The 73rd annual international conference of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), first Virtual Conference, 30 April - 1 May 2020.
36. The 7th international meeting of EAHN, chaired by Ana Esteban Maluenda, to be held 15–18 June 2022, Madrid.
37. My proposal was selected for the second event of the series held on 26 February 2021. The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic spurred members of the Graduate Student Advisory Committee team of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), Jia Yi Gu, Jonah Rowen, and Jessica Varner to ask: “How are early-career scholars of architectural history acknowledging their own place in the histories they are writing? How do these acknowledgements take place, and where? And will this moment mark a shift in scholarship?” https://www.sah.org/publications-and-research/sah-blog/sah-blog/2021/03/09/method-acts-graduate-students-and-emerging-professionals-discuss-approaches-to-scholarship accessed 15 November 2021.
38. Marta Gutman, “Oral History and Architectural History: Theory, Politics, Method,” accessed on 3 July 2021.
39. See Alex G. Bremner, Johan Lagae and Mercedes Volait, “Intersecting Interests: Developments in Networks and Flows of Information and Expertise in Architectural History,” Fabrications vol. 26, no. 2 (2016): 227–245.
40. For examples of historiographical analysis and reflections on the history of architecture and environments in Australia and New Zealand, see Andrew Leach, Antony Moulis and Nicole Sully, eds., Shifting Views: Selected Essays on the Architectural History of Australia and New Zealand (St. Lucia, QLD: University of Queensland Press, 2008). Paul Memmott and James Davidson, “Indigenous Culture and Architecture in the South Pacific Region: 25 Years of SAHANZ Fabrications vol. 18: no. 1 (2008): PAGES. Julie Willis and Philip Goad, “A Bigger Picture: Reframing Australian Architectural History,” Fabrications vol. 18, no. 1 (2008): PAGES. David Beynon, Brandon Gardiner, Ursula de Jong, Mirjana Lozanovska, Flavia Marcello, “An Issues Paper: The Roots/Routes of Australian Architecture: Elements of an Alternative Architectural History,” in Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: 31, Translation, edited by Christoph Schnoor (Auckland, New Zealand: SAHANZ and Unitec ePress; and Gold Coast, QLD: SAHANZ, 2014), 63–87.
41. For example, The Centre for Asian and Middle Eastern Architecture (CAMEA) and the Society of Urban and Architectural Historians of Asia (SAUH-Asia), frequently co-sharing annual conference platforms and engaging more pointedly with Global South concerns. For further on this point, see Macarena de la Vega, “SAHANZ: The Last 15 Years, 2004–2019,” 398–399.
42. Most notably the “Other Connections” international network of scholars in architectural history, which was active in the 1990s, precursor of the Global Architectural History and Theory Collaborative (GAHTC). They organised international symposia and published their proceedings in seminal volumes such as Postcolonial Space(s), edited by G. B. Nalbantoğlu and C. T. Wong (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997).
43. Fraser, Murray, ed. Sir Bannister Fletcher’s Global History of Architecture. London: Bloomsbury, 2020. The three chapters on the region have been written by Deidre Brown, Paul Memmott and J N Miksic; by Paul Walker and Amanda Achmadi, and by Philip Goad.
44. Vikramaditya Prakash, Maristella Casciato and Daniel E. Coslett, eds., Rethinking Global Modernism. Architectural Historiography and the Postcolonial (London and New York: Routledge, 2022). The anthology includes Anoma Pieris, “Subaltern-diasporic Histories of Modernism: Working on Australia’s “Snowy Scheme,” 251–272.
45. SAH Data Project Report.
46. See paper by author, in Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand edited by Kate Hislop and Hannah Lewi (Perth: SAHANZ, 2021).
47. See paper by author, in Proceedings of the Sixth International Meeting of the European Architectural History Network (EAHN) edited by Richard Anderson (Edinburgh: The University of Edinburgh, 2021).
48. Janina Gosseye, “Ways to Listen Anew. What Next for Oral History and Architecture?” in Speaking of Buildings, 273.
49. Naomi Stead, Ibid., 271.
50. Deborah van der Plaat, Ibid., 277.
51. Julia Gatley, “SAHANZ: The First 20 Years, 1984–2004,” Fabrications 13:2 (2004): 82–86.
52. Block, “The New Oral History of Architecture: Review Essay,” 107. Note 20: “For a full discussion of these characteristics, see Douglas A. Boyd, Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement, ed. M. Larson, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).”
53. Stead, “Ways to Listen Anew. What Next for Oral History and Architecture?” 282.
54. Janina Gosseye, SAH Roundtable on Oral History, 25 May 2021.
55. Gosseye, “A Short History of Silence,” 19.
56. On the practice of listening through oral history see Martha Norkunas, “Teaching to Listen: Listening Exercises and Self-Reflexive Journals,” The Oral History Review vol. 38, no. 1 (2011): 63–108. On the challenges of deep listening see Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki, “Only Human: A Reflection on the Ethical and Methodology Challenges of Working with “Difficult” Stories, The Oral History Review vol. 37, no. 2 (2010): 191–214.
57. Van der Plaat, “Ways to Listen Anew. What Next for Oral History and Architecture?” 275.
58. Stead, Ibid., 276.
59. “Mary McLeod in conversation with Salomon Frausto and Léa-Catherine Szacka,” in The Architecture of Populism: Media, Politics, and Aesthetics, Footprint (Autumn/Winter 2021): 163–170.
60. Jane Rendell, “Writing Aloud: Architectural History as a Critical Practice,” unpublished text read at the 19th annual conference of SAHANZ, “Additions to Architectural History” convened by John Macarthur and Antony Moulis, held on 4–7 October 2002. Text shared with author via email, 26 March 2021.
61. Julia Gatley, email to author, 9 February 2021.
62. MSD at HOME with Jane Rendell, “Practices of Architecture Writing,” hosted by Hélène Frichot, 14 September 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK4zV44mGCk
63. Ibid.
64. Gosseye and Stead, “Alternative Facts: Towards a Theorization of Oral History in Architecture.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F62cRfqvDGg accessed on 18 October 2021.
65. Iain Borden and Jane Rendell, “From chamber to transformer: epistemological challenges and tendencies in the intersection of architectural histories and critical theories,” in Intersections: Architectural Histories and Critical Theories (London and New York: Routledge, 2000), 10.
66. Ibid., 11.
67. Jane Rendell, “Marginal Modes: Positions of Architecture Writing,” The Architectural Review no. 1473 (July/August 2020). https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/marginal-modes-positions-of-architecture-writing accessed on 30 March 2021.