
Call for Papers
In 1971, architects Serge Chermayeff and Alexander
Tzonis introduced the term “third ecology” into the architectural lexicon.
Conceived of in evolutionary terms, the authors argued that if organisms had
originally dwelt in the sea—the “first ecology” — only to graduate to the land
— the “second ecology” — now humankind’s ability to alter its surroundings via
technology meant that the “man-made and the natural are now inseparable.” To
study this novel human-altered environment, the authors claimed that we must
develop a third ecological science. If their original conception of the term
bore a similarity to other urban-focused “environmental design” programs that
arose at this time, in a later 1980 lecture by Chermayeff called “The Third
Ecology,” the concept had taken on a decidedly planetary scale: “Everything we
now do or will do will change our environment in a fundamental way … man is
global in his effect.” Moreover, the cautionary optimism of the earlier text
had long gone: noting rising pollution and the depletion of nonrenewable fuels,
Chermayeff contended that, unless we developed this new science fast, human
civilization faced “catastrophe.”
The
effects of the anthropogenic climate crisis have compelled a resurgence of
scholarship about the often fraught relationship between the built and the
natural environment. The connection between the building sector and the
disruption of the physical systems of the planet is not merely coincidental, we
now know, but causal. Currently, global building activity produces nearly 40%
of the world’s yearly greenhouse gas emissions, making architecture, broadly
speaking, one of the most polluting activities in human history. How should
historians respond to this now well-established fact that architecture causes
ecological harm? While, unsurprisingly, our field has recently shown a greater
interest in topics related to climate, does the environmental crisis require us
to not only change our subjects of focus but to also, as Esther da Costa Meyer
argues, fundamentally change our methods of writing architectural history?
Heeding insights from the field of environmental justice, is an architectural
history of the climate crisis necessarily also a decolonial and anti-racist
project?
To
grapple with these questions, the EAHN thematic conference Third Ecology, organized by the Emilio
Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment
at the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and co-chaired by Listaháskóli Íslands
(Iceland University of the Arts, Reykjavík), invites architectural historians
to investigate the relationship between the built environment and the planet's
ecologies. This conference will follow on the heels of the Ambasz Institute’s
first exhibition, a large-scale survey of the relationship between architecture
and
the rise of environmentalism as a social and political movement. While MoMA’s
exhibition and catalog will focus on architecture and design work emanating
from the American environmental movement, this EAHN conference seeks to broaden
the remit so as to uncover environmental histories across the globe. In
particular, we hope to privilege knowledge produced by communities that have
been historically marginalized. Through this conference, then, we hope to redefine
the types of expertise that constitute the third ecology: beyond the arts of
ecological management and design called for by Chermayeff, the project of
tackling our present crisis must include the voices of critical architectural
historians worldwide.
Third Ecology will be hosted in
Reykjavík. Iceland is a
third ecology. From deforestation upon settlement in the 9th century, through a
subsequent millenium of animal husbandry in a fragile ecosystem, the
introduction of reindeer from Norway at the end of the 18th century to
"enrich" the country´s fauna, to land drainage policies in the last
century to accommodate the mechanization of state-subsidized agriculture, and
landscape transforming damming projects in the current century to power a
hydroelectricity plant, Iceland's environment is thoroughly human altered. Most
recently, global temperature rise has caused the rapid melting of Icelandic
glaciers. A plaque, laid in 2019, commemorates the “death” of Okjökull not far
from Reykjavík. At the conference guided trips and architectural visits
led by local scholars and architects will further instill a sense of how
academic knowledge is intimately tied to the realities of our swiftly changing
climate.
Proposals submitted to the conference may choose to address the following questions:
- How have architectural
histories shaped discourses about current day environmental crises?*
- In what ways have concepts of
environment or ecology been thematized by architects or urbanists?
- From nineteenth century understandings of environmental determinism
to “green gentrification” today, how have architectural conceptions of the
environment been used to justify, and in turn, construct social
inequalities?
- How have architects’ concepts
of the environment constructed, justify, and/or contribute to racial
inequalities today?
- In what ways has architecture
contributed to the formation of political, ideological, and pedagogical
systems that have had a direct impact on the environment? How has
architecture as a practice gained from such power?
- What role has the field of
architecture—a discipline whose central concern is oftentimes posited to
be the orchestration of the relationship between an individual and its
natural surroundings—played in defining the now highly influential concept
of the “environment”?
- How can we reimagine
architectural histories not as accounts of isolated objects but as
narratives of relationships and processes? That is, how can we begin to
see buildings as nodes within larger networks of material extraction,
capital accumulation, and waste expulsion?
- What is the role of
aesthetics in the development of “green” or ecology-based architecture?
- How can architectural
histories of the environment inform the present day politics of planetary
management? In what ways have the declared urgencies of past environmental
crises led to incursions upon national sovereignty and other forms of
neocolonialism?
- From the vantage point of a conference convened at the faultlines of the “Global North” and the “Global Far North” in the middle of a climate crisis, is this crisis felt differently in traditionally “cold” and “warm” environments, and how does architecture serve as a mediator? Are architectural histories of “the environment” the same everywhere, just told through different objects and actors?
- Submit proposals (300 words), bio (200 words).
-
Deadline: 13th of March 2023.
-
Scientific
committee of the conference will go through, select and
organize proposals around themed sessions. Notifications on participation will
be sent by April 2023.
Call for Papers and Discussion Positions
Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted through the Conference website in the form below, along with applicant’s name, professional affiliation, title of paper or position, a short curriculum vitae, home and work addresses, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers.
Sessions will consist of four papers and a respondent, with time for dialogue and questions at the end. Each paper should be limited to a 20-minute presentation.
Abstracts for session presentations should define the subject and summarize the argument to be presented in the proposed paper. The content of that paper should be the product of well- documented original research that is primarily analytical and interpretative rather than descriptive in nature.
Round tables will consist of five to ten participants and an extended time for dialogue, debate and discussion among chair(s) and public. Each discussant will have 10 minutes to present a position. Abstracts for round table debates should summarize the position to be taken in the discussion. Papers may not have been previously published, nor presented in public. Only one submission per author will be accepted. All abstracts will be held in confidence during the selection process.
In addition to the thematic sessions and round tables, open sessions may be announced.
The Organizing Committee has the prerogative to recommend changes to the abstract.
The Organizing Committee may suggest editorial revisions to a paper or discussion position in order to make it satisfy the conference guidelines or publication purposes and will return it with comments to the speaker.
Speakers must complete any revisions and distribute copies of their paper or discussion position to the chair and the other speakers or discussants. The Organizing Committee reserves the right to withhold a paper or a discussion position from the program if the author has refused to comply with these guidelines. It is the responsibility of the Organizing Committee to inform speakers of these guidelines, as well as of the general expectations for both a session and participation in this meeting.
Each speaker is expected to fund his or her own registration, travel and expenses to Reykjavík, Iceland.
Third Ecology will be held at Harpa (Austurbakka 2, 101 Reykjavík), October 11-13, 2023. Guided tours to sights around Reykjavik will be organized on the days of and following the conference.
CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL