Call for papers

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Amongst the many narratives about the advent of modern architecture, Sigfried Giedion advanced the line that it had primarily developed through the discovery and application of new materials. His Bauen in Frankreich: Bauen mit Eisen. Bauen mit Eisenbeton, apparently prompted directly by Le Corbusier, argues that iron and reinforced concrete buildings, which gave modern architecture essential materiality, had been developed predominantly in the 19th century in France:

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“The ‘new’ architecture had its origins at the moment of industrial formation around 1830, at the moment of the transformation from hand work to industrial production.”

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Sigfried Giedion, Building in France. Building in Iron. Building in Ferroconcrete,

intr. Sokratis Georgiadis, transl. DuncanBerry (Los Angeles: Getty, 1995), 86.

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But what was the situation in New Zealand and Australia, in the ‘New World’? Or perhaps rather: the ‘very old world’, when we think about the inhabitation of the Australian continent for c. 60,000 years by its Indigenous population? Māori and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples built with materials of the earth and with timber, in manifold variations. The settlers built with what was available – again, earth,

timber, often corrugated iron.

 

For this symposium, we ask:

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How has the specific use of materials advanced buildings and construction in New Zealand and Australia over the past century? Modern architecture in New Zealand and Australia may have, as we have previously discussed in the 2024 AASA Symposium, a particular relationship with place. For example, Christchurch-based architect Paul Pascoe wrote in 1947:

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“The conditions in this young country are wholly favourable to modern design. Our indigenous materials are suitable. Our earthquake risk demands studied structural systems which confirm the cantilever principle, the simple forms and other features of modern design.”  

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Paul Pascoe and Humphrey Hall, “The Modern House”, Landfall, vol. 1, no. 2 (1947), 123.

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Does this connection with place rely on the use of specific – local – materials? What are the conditions that have shaped the use of a specific material? How have individual architects, builders or engineers advanced the use of unusual materials over the last c. 100 years? And how is all this reflected in modern buildings in New Zealand and Australia?

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This symposium asks contributors to start with a single material in a single building as case study, from which to expand outward to consider more broadly the relationship between materiality and architecture in New Zealand and Australia.

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Papers might pursue one of the following thematic threads:

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Cultures: From the ‘brick and tile’ state house in New Zealand to the ‘cream brick frontier’ of postwar Australian suburbia, building materials have acted as registers of cultural identity. How have materials articulated changing understandings of architecture’s cultural value? How did Indigenous notions of designing for Country and material knowledge have effect? How have architects used materials to negotiate between ideas of universalism and nationalism/regionalism in Australasia?​

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Agents: A focus on materials compels an examination of the movements and networks of a multitude of agents engaged in the production of the built environment, beyond the scope of the single architect designed building. How has the knowledge of professionals dealing with specific materials, including industrialists, engineers, artists, and skilled workers, interacted with the work of architects in the construction of the built environment?​

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Economies:  From the “ordinariness” of Glenn Murcutt’s corrugated iron celebrated by Pritzker Prize jurors to the utility of the concrete block, issues around material cost have frequently aligned to changing architectural trends. A focus on materials also allows for a reconsideration of architecture as a commodity. How has the architecture of Australasia been shaped through material availability and supply chains?

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Environments: As ubiquitous building materials such as concrete and bricks are increasingly being seen as consonant with the fossil fuel era, while older techniques such as rammed earth or strawbale are being reappraised, how might a focus on materials reconfigure environmental histories of architecture? Similarly, how do histories of toxic materials shape architectural histories, and vice versa?

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We invite contributions from established scholars as well as from heritage professionals and PhD students. A book with selected papers from the 2024 symposium is forthcoming in 2026, to be published by Leuven University Press in Belgium. We expect a similar outcome from this year’s event.

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Submission requirements:

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Abstracts of no more than 250 words, accompanied by a single image of the author’s chosen building (caption plus reference), should be submitted along with the applicant’s name, email address, professional affiliation, and brief 50-word biography.​ The submission template can be found here.​

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