Do you have a place that you'd like to share with your fellow VAFers?  We are looking for meeting sites and dedicated conference organizers, beginning in 2022 (after Philadelphia, San Antonio, and Plymouth, MA).  It's not too soon to start planning!  The work is hard but the rewards are infinite and our gratitude is unending.  For more information, contact Kim Hoagland, 2nd VP, hoagland@mtu.edu.

The Cultural Value of Everyday Places

A symposium in recognition of Richard Longstreth's contribution to scholarship on the American built environment. 

Tuesday May 28th - Wednesday May 29th, 2019*

This symposium will take place ahead of the 2019 VAF Conference Landscapes of Succession in Philadelphia. It will involve contributions from a group of former students, colleagues and collaborators whose work engages with, and has been inspired by, Richard Longstreth’s scholarship, teaching and public advocacy. This includes people in academia as well as those in cultural resource management. The various panels at the symposium will focus on contemporary work by a range of scholars and researchers who have explicitly drawn on his lessons or otherwise engaged with the kinds of theoretical and methodological approaches that Longstreth has championed. Given the overwhelmingly historical focus of his work this symposium will naturally look to the past. But it will equally focus on what is being done about the past in the present and will grapple with future directions in how we understand the past and its legacy in the built environment.

*While scheduled over two days it is planned as 1 full day of events beginning at lunchtime on Tuesday May 28^th

Does your work contribute to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes?  Have you published a scholarly article on the subject in the last two years?  You may be eligible for the Bishir Prize from the Vernacular Architecture Forum.

The 2019 Bishir Prize, named for longtime VAF member and influential scholar Catherine W. Bishir, will be awarded to the scholarly article published in a juried North American publication between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2018 that has made the most significant contribution to the study of vernacular architecture and cultural landscapes. Articles considered for the prize should be based on primary research, break new ground in interpretation or methodology, and contribute to the intellectual vitality of these fields. Entries may come from any discipline concerned with vernacular architecture studies.

Please note that essays published as chapters in a book are also eligible if the volume is peer-reviewed, published within the time parameters specified, and the research presented in the essay is new. Anthologized collections are not eligible.

The deadline for nominations for the 2019 Bishir Prize is February 1, 2019.

To nominate an article please submit the following:

• MS Word document providing contact information, publication data (name of book publishing company or title of journal, and date of publication), and a brief statement contextualizing the author(s) and article.
• PDF copy of the article.

Nomination materials should be submitted to Dr. Margaret Grubiak at bishirprize@vafweb.org. For more information, visit: http://www.vernaculararchitectureforum.org/Bishir-prize

VAF Member Marta Gutman, editor emeritas of Buildings and Landscapes, has been named a Distinguished CUNY Fellow.  To read more about this honor, please see the CUNY website. 

On April 20, 2018, members Mary Beth Betts and Marjorie Pearson co-chaired a session, "Working with Mr. Gilbert: Cass Gilbert and His Collaborators," at the 71st Annual International Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians in St. Paul.

Member Marjorie Pearson published "The Intersection of Faith and Family: Three Rural North Dakota Cemeteries" in North Dakota History, Winter 2017/vol 82.2, which deals with German and German-Russian cemetery art and burial traditions in Morton and Oliver Counties.

Member Travis McDonald recently published two essays on Thomas Jefferson, one appearing in the UVA magazine titled "Tom the Builder" and one in Palladiana titled "Thomas Jefferson, Builder."

Anderson, Grant. “‘Why Can’t They Meet in Bars and Clubs like Normal People?’: The Protective State and Bioregulating Gay Public Sex Spaces.” Social & Cultural Geography 19, no. 6 (August 18, 2018): 699–719. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2017.1301542.

Asaka, Megan. “‘40-Acre Smudge’ Race and Erasure in Prewar Seattle.” Pacific Historical Review 87, no. 2 (Spring 2018): 231–63.

Avermaete, Tom. “A Thousand Youth Clubs: Architecture, Mass Leisure and the Rejuvenation of Post-War France.” The Journal of Architecture 18, no. 5 (October 2013): 632–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2013.840009.

Baker, Andrew C. Bulldozer Revolutions: A Rural History of the Metropolitan South. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2018.

Birnbaum, Charles A., Scott Craver, and Cultural Landscape Foundation, eds. Shaping the Postwar Landscape: New Profiles from the Pioneers of the American Landscape Design Project. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2018.

Boykin, Sarah J., and Susan M. Hunter, eds. Southern Homes and Plan Books: The Architectural Legacy of Leila Ross Wilburn. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2018.

Breisch, Kenneth A. American Libraries 1730-1950. First edition. Norton/Library of Congress Visual Sourcebooks in Architecture, Design and Engineering. New York : Washington, D.C: W.W. Norton & Company ; Library of Congress, 2017.

Browne, Jemma, Christian Frost, and Ray Lucas, eds. Architecture, Festival and the City. Critiques: Critical Studies in Architectural Humanities, volume 14. New York: Routledge, 2019.

Cleys, Bram [VNV]. Missionary Places, 1850-1950: Imagining, Building, Contesting Christianities. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2018.

Curl, James. Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Denison, Edward. Architecture and the Landscape of Modernity in China Before 1949. S.l.: ROUTLEDGE, 2018.

Deverell, William, and Anne Farrar Hyde. Shaped by the West. Vol. 2. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018.

Ekici, Didem. “In Praise of Poverty: The Middle-Class Dwelling and Asceticism in Early Twentieth-Century Germany.” The Journal of Architecture 23, no. 4 (May 19, 2018): 563–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602365.2018.1479226.

Erlanger, Olivia, and Luis Ortega Govel. Garage. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2018.

Etxepare, Lauren, Eneko J. Uranga, and Naiara Zuazua-Guisasola. “Marcel Breuer and Jean Barets in Bayonne (1964-68): The Use of Architectural Precast Concrete Panels in Large Public Housing Schemes.” Construction History 30, no. 1 (2015): 109–26.

Flowers, Benjamin S. Sport and Architecture. S.l.: ROUTLEDGE, 2018.

Galavan, Susan. Dublin’s Bourgeois Homes: Building the Victorian Suburbs, 1850-1901. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

Geva, Anat. Modernism and American Mid-20th Century Sacred Architecture. S.l.: ROUTLEDGE, 2018.

Glasser, Ruth. “The Farm in the City in the Recent Past: Thoughts on a More Inclusive Urban Historiography.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 3 (May 2018): 501–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144216688906.

Goetz, Andrew R., and E. Eric Boschmann. Metropolitan Denver: Growth and Change in the Mile High City. 1st edition. Metropolitan Portraits. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018.

Grove, Carol. Hare & Hare, Landscape Architects. S.l.: UNIV OF GEORGIA PRESS, 2018.

Hannah, Dorita. Event Space: Theatre Architecture and the Historical Avant-Garde. New York: Routledge, 2018.

Henthorn, Thomas C. “Building a Moral Metropolis: Philanthropy and City Building in Houston, Texas.” Journal of Urban History 44, no. 3 (May 2018): 402–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0096144214566951.

Högström, Ebba. “‘It Used to Be Here but Moved Somewhere Else’: Post-Asylum Spatialisations – a New Urban Frontier?” Social & Cultural Geography 19, no. 3 (April 3, 2018): 314–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2016.1239753.

Ingerpuu, Laura. “Socialist Architecture as Today’s Dissonant Heritage: Administrative Buildings of Collective Farms in Estonia.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 24, no. 9 (October 21, 2018): 954–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2018.1428664.

Ingersoll, Richard. World Architecture: A Cross-Cultural History. Second edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Isenstadt, Sandy. Electric Light: An Architectural History. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2018.

Lasc, Anca I. Interior Decorating in Nineteenth Century France: The Visual Culture of a New Profession. S.l.: MANCHESTER UNIV PRESS, 2018.

Lisa Brooks. “Awikhigawôgan Ta Pildowi Ôjmowôgan: Mapping a New History.” The William and Mary Quarterly 75, no. 2 (2018): 259. https://doi.org/10.5309/willmaryquar.75.2.0259.

Lucey, Conor. Building Reputations: Architecture and the Artisan, 1750-1830, 2018. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=1842634.

Luiz Lara, Fernando. “Dissemination of Design Knowledge: Evidence from 1950s’ Brazil.” The Journal of Architecture 11, no. 2 (April 2006): 241–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602360600787165.

McTavish, Lianne. “Middle of Nowhere: Contesting Rural Heritage at the World Famous Gopher Hole Museum.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 24, no. 7 (August 9, 2018): 764–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2017.1300930.

Penner, Barbara. “The Cornell Kitchen: Housing and Design Research in Postwar America.” Technology and Culture 59, no. 1 (2018): 48–94. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2018.0006.

Regele, Lindsay Schakenbach. “The World’s Best Carpets: Erastus Bigelow and the Financing of Antebellum Innovation.” Technology and Culture 59, no. 1 (2018): 126–51. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2018.0008.

Risebero, Bill. Story of Western Architecture. Fourth edition. S.l.: BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS, 2018.

Russell, Robert Douglass. William Strickland and the Creation of an American Architecture, 2017.

Sciorra, Joseph. Built With Faith: Italian American Imagination and Catholic Material Culture in New York City. KNOXVILLE: UNIV OF TENNESSEE PRESS, 2017.

Singha, Sumita. Women in Architecture. 4 Vols. Andover: Routledge Ltd., 2018.

Smith, Patricia Lowe. “Digital Restoration of a South Carolina Landmark: 3D Visualization at Drayton Hall.” APT Bulletin: The Journal of Preservation Technology 48, no. 4 (2017): 37–42.

Townsend, Camilla. “Introduction: Breaking the Law of the Preservation of Energy of Historians.” The American Historical Review 123, no. 3 (June 1, 2018): 779–88.

Willis, Julie. Architecture and the Modern Hospital. S.l.: Routledge, 2015.

Wood, Jason. Amusement Park: History, Culture and the Heritage of Pleasure. S.l.: ROUTLEDGE, 2018.