SAHMDR 2020 Call for Papers

The Marion Dean Ross (PNW) chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians is pleased to announce that the Call for Papers is open for the session we are sponsoring at the Society of Architectural Historians International meeting in Seattle in May-June, 2020. Our session is entitled: “Sites Unseen: Other Cultural Landscapes of the Pacific Northwest” and is being organized by J. Philip Gruen of Washington State University and James Buckley of the University of Oregon. The session is described as follows: “The built environment of the Pacific Northwest reflects a diversity of traditions, yet the full range of its architecture remains understudied. This session will examine Northwestern cultural landscapes that lie outside of the dominant culture, such as those of Indigenous peoples, African Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, women, LGBTQAA+, European ethnic groups, religious sects, and other specific populations. Papers might examine physical structures these groups designed on their own, their reuse of existing buildings for their own purposes, or spaces they occupied intentionally or involuntarily (including agricultural landscapes, internment camps, and reservations).

Papers are welcome on a wide variety of sites, time periods, and occupants/users. For example, recent archaeological, ethnological, and fieldwork studies of Indigenous groups can help us understand the many native cultures in this region. Migrants from Mexico and Central America have had a regional presence since the early-twentieth century, yet the Latin American cultural landscape of the Northwest remains largely hidden from the historic and contemporary record. Asian immigrants helped develop the Pacific Northwest; what can a site like Kam Wah Chung in John Day, Oregon, or the East Kong Yick Building in Seattle reveal about their experience? Seattle’s Central District and Portland’s Albina neighborhood have shifted from majority African American in the late 1960s to mostly white today, but what do we know about the black cultural landscape of the Pacific Northwest—its homes, schools, stores, clubs, and places of worship? The session is intended to expose ways in which architecture can represent different cultural landscapes within a single, culturally complex geographical region.

More information about important dates and how to submit an abstract can be found at: https://www.sah.org/2020/call-for-papers#25