Welcome to the August 2021 issue of VAN. You’ll find exciting accolades and new publications under Member News, as well as a slate of in-person and virtual conferences and events. Please note the call for Buildings & Landscapes image editor is still open! Lydia Brandt is happy to answer inquiries on behalf of the editorial board.

Wishing you all good health as summer draws to a close!

Marisa Gomez Nordyke

VAN Editor

The Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF) solicits letters of interest from scholars seeking to serve its peer-reviewed journal Buildings & Landscapes. The journal currently has an opening for the position of image editor. This is a volunteer position.

Published twice a year by University of Minnesota Press, Buildings & Landscapes is the leading source for scholarly work on the vernacular architecture of North America or areas that broaden the context of North American architecture and cultural landscapes. The journal’s contributors include historians and architectural historians, preservationists and architects, geographers, anthropologists and folklorists, and others. All share an interest in documenting, analyzing, and interpreting vernacular forms and approach the built environment as windows into human life and culture, basing their scholarship on both fieldwork and archival research. As of the Fall 2020 issue (27.2), the journal is printed in full color, making the role of the image editor even more important.

Call for image editor

The image editor of Buildings & Landscapes works closely with the journal’s two coeditors on all matters related to the illustration program. This includes advising on the selection, sizing, and color of images. In addition, the image editor works with each author to ensure the submittal of images of sufficient resolution and appropriate permissions in advance of submission to the University of Minnesota Press per its guidelines. The image editor also reviews proofs and answers queries from the Press to facilitate publication. The image editor is a three-year (six journal issues) position. The image editor term officially begins with B&L 30.1 (Spring 2023), whose submissions are due to the Press in the Fall 2022. Ideally this new image editor will shadow the current one for 29.2 (Fall 2022), whose submissions are due in Spring 2022. 

A reminder that Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum reviews article manuscripts on a rolling basis. The editors invite submissions to be considered for issue 29.2 (fall 2022) by October 15, 2021.

The editors encourage submission of scholarly articles that integrate fieldwork and archival/primary source research into an original argument about the history of everyday buildings and/or landscapes. The editors particularly welcome submission of articles on topics related to the study of North American vernacular architecture or which otherwise broaden the context of North American architecture and cultural landscapes. Authors are urged to draw linkages between the physical aspects of the built environment they study and the people who create, consume, use, and inhabit it. If an author is unsure about a manuscript’s fit for the journal, they are encouraged to contact the editors in advance of a formal submission.

Complete author guidelines may be found here.

Please contact the editors directly for inquiries or manuscript submissions: Lydia Mattice Brandt (lbrandt.usc@gmail.com) and Michael Chiarappa (Michael.Chiarappa@quinnipiac.edu). Inquiries about reviews can be directed to the Review Editor: Rachel Leibowitz (leibowitz@esf.edu).

The Hill Country tour will include a stop at the house of Heinrich and Auguste Kammlah. The family was living on this lot by the late 1840s, and the present house was begun in 1853-54 and enlarged in several campaign before 1910. The earliest rooms were built using fachwerk, and all later rooms were built of solid rock. When a “new house” was built after the Civil War the front part was adapted for commercial use. The second kitchen features a raised cooking hearth and two original pieces of German Texan furniture owned by the Kammlah family and donated along with the house. The complex has survived to the present day because it was at the northwestern end of town, away from the most intense commercial development, and has been the crown jewel of the Gillespie County Historical Society since 1955.

VAF member Carl Lounsbury has edited a new book, The Material World of Eyre Hall: Four Centuries of Chesapeake History. The book covers the history, architecture, landscape, gardens, and household objects of the Eyre/Baldwin family that have owned the estate since the house was built in 1759. Among its 22 contributors are VAF members past and present, including Susan Buck, Cary Carson, Ed Chappell, and Gary Stanton. The text is richly illustrated with many stunning architectural photographs by VAF member Jeff Klee as well as architectural drawings of the house and its outbuildings by students at the College of William & Mary.

For details on how to preorder visit shop.mdhistory.org!

VAF member Travis McDonad has been selected as the 2021 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient by the UVA School of Architecture. One of the leading historic restoration/preservation specialists in the United States, McDonald, the director of architectural restoration at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, has led the way in transforming these fields for over 30 years. The award will be presented to McDonald at the Annual Dean’s Forum Dinner at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville on September 25, 2021.

The National Historic Landmarks Program is pleased to announce the release of a new theme study, Civil Rights in America: Racial Discrimination in Housing. Authored by Matthew D. Lassiter and Susan Cianci Salvatore and prepared in cooperation with the Organization of American Historians (OAH) and National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers (NCSHPO), this theme study is part four of the five-part Civil Rights in America. This fourth installment examines the history of housing discrimination against African American, Latinx, American Indian, and Asian American people leading to passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Beyond potential NHLs, the context here and in other NHL theme studies can be useful when preparing National Register nominations. The complete accessible PDF including analysis of potentially nationally significant properties is available for download here.

The Jamaican Historical Society will host a 2-day conference under the theme “Decolonizing Caribbean History." Papers are being invited from researchers, academics and students of history, archaeology, anthropology and related disciplines. Abstracts can be submitted within the following sub-themes:

1. Culture & heritage

2. Sites & Monuments

3. Advocacy & Public Education

4. Social & Restorative Justice

5. Reparations & Repatriation

Deadline for submission: August 30, 2021 11:59 EST

For full abstract guidelines and conference details, click below:

The Construction History Society of America announces its 2021-2022 slate of free webinars. The three-part series opens with architectural historian Thomas Leslie and features award-winning author and illustrator David Macaulay. Macaulay is known for his series The Way Things Work, which introduces children (and adults) to complex mechanical processes by way of a mastodon's antics.

Brutalism + the Public University: Past, Present and Future is a two-day collaborative symposium held at UMass Dartmouth on Friday, October 22, 2021 and at UMass Amherst on Saturday, October 23, 2021. The symposium brings together nation-wide scholars, industry professionals and passionate citizens with an interest in concrete Brutalist architecture and preservation of the architectural icons. The symposium’s goal is to create a dynamic, cross-disciplinary conversation among all participants on how we may conserve and provide stewardship of our buildings for the future. Participants can attend professional workshops and scholarly lectures, tour the campuses, and engage with local artists and community activists in public events.