Society of Architectural Historians

CALL FOR SESSIONS - The Society of Architectural Historians' online conference offers an opportunity for members from around the world to share and discuss research in architectural history and related disciplines that cover every period in the history of architecture and all aspects of the built environment. We invites those interested in the history of the built environment to submit a session proposal for its virtual conference—SAH Virtual 2025—that will be held from Thursday, September 18, to Saturday, September 20, 2025. In addition to architectural historians, we seek submissions from allied and adjacent disciplines including (but not limited to) architecture, landscape, urban history, art history, design, archaeology, sociology, anthropology, geography, environmental studies, etc. The guiding principle for SAH Virtual 2025 is inter-disciplinary sharing and collaboration. We hope this will be an opportunity for people from any discipline who are interested in the history of the built environment to participate in a meaningful exchange of ideas. View the complete Call on our website for full details, https://lnkd.in/gJHQae-E #architecture #conference #opportunity #online #virtual

CONTAINER / CONTAINED, Phil Freelon: Design Strategies for Telling African American Stories. Experience the exhibition and a special event on May 2 during #SAH2025 Conference in Atlanta. Philip G. Freelon (1953-2019) had a remarkable four-decade architectural career designing public buildings. This exhibition, curated by Dr. Emily G. Maka? and a team from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, critically examines Freelon’s libraries, museums, and other public buildings with a focus on projects that foreground African American culture, communities, and identities. Freelon argued architecture should be more than a container, that it should help tell the story of and be integral to the content of these public institutions. Two Atlanta projects are featured, including the National Center for Civil and Human Rights (2014) and the renovation and expansion of the Auburn Avenue Research Library (2016). Architectural historians Arthur J. Clement, Freelon’s biographer, and Dr. Emily G. Maka?, the exhibition curator, present a talk followed by reception and small group tours of the Auburn Avenue Research Library, where the event will take place. Conference registration is required to attend. Badges must be shown for admittance. Learn more about #SAH2025 at sah.org/2025

Join SAH for a JOB MARKET WORKSHOP for emerging architectural historians. This rigorous, six-week workshop addressing the fundamentals of marketing oneself as a competitive candidate on the academic job market. The experience is geared toward advanced PhD candidates or newly minted PhDs. The program will meet weekly on Fridays from June 13th to July 25th (except July 4). Each session will be in the format of a two-hour online meeting with many interactive elements. We will be joined by guest speakers who will provide insights into what makes a strong job applicant stand out. The workshop will be adaptive to participants' needs and provide opportunities for application materials to be reviewed by peers and established scholars. Learn more and apply by March 6: https://lnkd.in/gyATFkvb

SAH names Francesca Sisci as a 2025 H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellow. She is an architect and adjunct professor at Polytechnic of Bari. She has a PhD in Architectural Representation and her approach of research is distinctive in its integration of multiple disciplines, including art history, architectural theory, and photography. She focuses on exploring aspects of visual perception and how these can be translated into images. Her Brooks-funded travel itinerary is based on a desire to explore the feminine imaginary as it applies to architecture from ancient to contemporary structures. She will explore this important question by trying to identify the types of architectural spaces that in different ways are connected with the female gender. In the course of a 6-month itinerary she will visit sites in Sardinia, Malta and Gozo, Türkiye, Crete, UK and Ireland, Norway, Greenland, the northeastern United States, and Mexico. "I have outlined a comprehensive itinerary that begins with the architecture of Neolithic civilizations and then leaps to contemporary structures," she said. "I chose to travel to places so ancient and remote in time to try to understand what the word architecture might have meant to these forgotten cultures. How was social and religious organization represented in architectural space? And how did it designate and accommodate different gender identities (male and female)?" The H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship provides the opportunity for an emerging scholar to study the built environment through travel and contemplation while observing, reading, writing, photographing, or sketching. The intent of the fellowship is to allow fellows to experience the built environment firsthand, think about their profession deeply, and acquire knowledge that they can contribute to their future work, their profession, and to society.

SAH names Amalie Elfallah as a 2025 H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellow. She is an architectural-urban designer who resides and works in the Maryland–Washington D.C. area, which she acknowledges as the ancestral and unceded lands of the Piscataway-Conoy peoples. As an independent scholar, her research examines the socio-spatial imaginaries, constructions, and realities of Italian colonial Libya (1911–1943). She explores how narratives of contemporary [post]colonial Italy and Libya are concealed/embodied, forgotten/remembered, and erased/concretized. Over the course of six months, Amalie will travel along the eastern coast of the United States before departing for Italy, China, Albania, Libya, and the Dodecanese Islands in Greece. Her itinerary focuses on tracing the built environment—buildings, monuments, public spaces, and street names—linked to a selection of Italy’s former colonies, protectorates, and concessions from the early twentieth-century. Through multiple lenses, including architectural history, preservation, urban planning, and alternative practices such as the arts and community-based discourses, she seeks to uncover the elusive connections between these diverse geographies of Italy’s colonial past. “Beyond being a tourist and guest, I am deeply grateful for the privilege of traveling to both unfamiliar and previously visited sites as a H. Allen Brooks Fellow for the Society of Architectural Historians,” said Elfallah, who has been invited to speak at and attend the SAH Annual Conference in Atlanta this year. As a panelist for the session "Literature and Contested Architectural Heritage," she will examine the intersection of fiction and history by engaging with the writings of Alessandro Spina—a nom de plume for Basili Shafik Khouzam (Benghazi, 1927–Rovato, 2013). The H. Allen Brooks Travelling Fellowship provides the opportunity for an emerging scholar to study the built environment through travel and contemplation while observing, reading, writing, photographing, or sketching. The intent of the fellowship is to allow fellows to experience the built environment firsthand, think about their profession deeply, and acquire knowledge that they can contribute to their future work, their profession, and to society.

The Society of Architectural Historians names Stephen Tobriner as the 2025 Fellow of SAH, the highest honor the Society bestows. Stephen Tobriner (pictured) is an architectural historian, educator, and archivist with a significant record of scholarly achievement, mentorship, and public engagement. From Italian towns rebuilding after earthquakes to Mesoamerican ruins, his published books and articles have not only opened new avenues of inquiry, but also shaped the way historians have studied architecture and its meanings. He taught the history of architecture and urbanism in the Architecture Department of the College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley, from 1971 until his retirement in 2006. "All of Professor Tobriner’s teaching was conducted with energy and imagination. He was perhaps the most energetic and popular lecturer among the history faculty because he was clearly deeply invested in students and their success," wrote Dell Upton (another SAH Fellow) in his nomination of Tobriner. Get to know SAH's newest Fellow: https://lnkd.in/eCqEaN8j SAH will formally present the Fellow award to Tobriner at an award celebration on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, at the 78th Annual International Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.

Imagine yourself basking in the late-summer Tuscan sun as you walk a cobbled road more than a thousand years old. We feel warmer already! SAH invites you to experience firsthand the fascinating history of wine cultivation and the infrastructure built to support it. Our Food x Architecture excursion tour — September 1-4, 2025 — is a 4-day, 3-night trip centered in the region of Chianti Classico. Its layered destinations follow the story of a landscape negotiated around the production of an iconic product. Visit vineyards, walk the countryside, and talk with producers and custodians to understand centuries of tradition and transformation as experienced by the communities of wine makers and chefs in the historic places in which they live and work. Expert guides in architectural history and the philosophy of food will highlights the many, often surprising, ways in which the movement of people, plants, aesthetics, and cultural and social practices have determined the physical development of Chianti. Don't wait to book! The last day to reserve your spot is Friday, February 28. Full details: https://lnkd.in/gRFzjk2C

"Community-led" or "participatory" architecture invites users to help plan and design their built environment. Who gets to tell the story of that participation afterward? If a historian wants to, how do we do so? SAH CONNECTS: Histories of Participation in Architecture Now February 21, 2025 | 9AM CST | Zoom webinar Panelists will share four studies of past collaborative architecture experiences and explore the different ways participation can be understood, investigated, and implemented. This will be an opportunity to rethink who gets to tell the story of participation, why and how researchers engage with reconsidering the social purpose of architectural practice, and what are the limits of our practices of research. SAH CONNECTS virtual events are free and open to the public. Learn more and register: https://lnkd.in/gRCBi2Si

#SAHARAhighlights the architecture of justice. Phra Sarocharattanimmaan (Saroch Sukkayang), Supreme Court, Ministry of Justice complex, Bangkok, Thailand, 1941-63. The columns represent the six ideals of the People’s Party: independence, safety, economy, equality, freedom and education. The impetus for the construction of the Ministry of Justice complex was the repeal of extraterritoriality laws in 1939. Photograph by Lawrence Chua, 2012. View 11 more remarkable buildings and memorials: https://lnkd.in/g4PZ7GFc SAHARA is a digital image archive developed by the Society of Architectural Historians in collaboration with JSTOR/ITHAKA and funded by the Mellon Foundation. Monthly image selections presented by SAHARA Co-Editors Jacqueline Spafford and Jeannine Keefer and Associate Editor Meral Ekincioglu. Follow Society of Architectural Historians and #SAHARAhighlights for future features, and join SAH to freely explore nearly 200,000 images of the built environment in our collection.

Get to know Atlanta through its graffiti and public art along the BeltLine. Join the public tour as part of #SAH2025 Annual Conference, April 30-May 4. Full lineup of tours, paper sessions, keynotes and other events at https://www.sah.org/2025 Save $75 when you register before February 19. Image: Artistic graffiti almost entirely covers the concrete walls and pillars of a hundred-foot long tunnel. This is the Krog Street Tunnel, photographed by Julia Tulke.