Listening In: Conversations on Architectures, Cities and Landscapes 1700-1900

DATES: 13, 14 and 15 September 2023
LOCATION: ETH Zürich
ORGANISED BY: Group Hultzsch + Delbeke chair

Who do we listen to when we write histories of architectures, cities, and landscapes? How many women authors can we find among our sources? How many of them are cited by those whose research we read? We argue that women and other marginalised groups have always been part of conversations on architectures, cities, and landscapes - but we have not had the space to listen to them. This conference is an invitation to reconstruct such conversations, real, imagined, and metaphorical ones, taking place in the 18th and 19th centuries, in any region, in order to diversify the ways we write histories. Taking the art of conversation, integral as both practice and form to the period in Western thought, and repurposing it to dismantle the exclusivity of historiography, this conference calls for contributions which bring women into dialogue with others. 

We invite papers on conversations that grapple with hierarchies and inequalities, incorporating asymmetrical power relationships while taking care not to gloss over the struggle, pain, and conflict often occurring in these situations. Papers should highlight at least one protagonist identifying as a woman, and are encouraged to also listen to

• persons marginalised because of their race, class, religion, sexual orientation, or else,
• so-called ‘canonical’ figures, both architects and critics as well as those from other professions, disciplines, or domains,
• individuals from different geographical regions, including those affected by the violence of imperialism and colonialism.

Keynote lectures

 
Prof Mabel O. Wilson, GSAPP, Columbia University. 
Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, a Professor in African American and African Diasporic Studies, and the Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS) 

Prof Jane Rendell, The Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.  Professor in Critical Spatial Practice, and co-founder of the MA Situated Practice. 

More information and photographs:

https://listening.arch.ethz.ch