Buildings & Landscapes

Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum

Buildings & Landscapes is the leading source for scholarly work on vernacular architecture of North America and beyond. The journal continues VAF’s tradition of scholarly publication going back to the first Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture in 1982. Published through the University of Minnesota Press since 2007, the journal moved from one to two issues per year in 2009. It began publishing full color images in 2020.

Buildings & Landscapes examines the places that people build and experience every day: houses and cities, farmsteads and alleys, churches and courthouses, subdivisions and shopping malls. The journal’s contributors include scholars, students, and practitioners; historians and architectural historians; preservationists, architects, geographers, anthropologists, and folklorists; and others whose work involves documenting, analyzing, and interpreting vernacular forms. The journal advances these diverse approaches to built environments as windows into human life and culture, basing scholarship on both fieldwork and archival research. The editors particularly welcome submission of articles on topics related to the study of North American vernacular architecture or that otherwise broaden the context of North American architecture and cultural landscapes.

Submissions

Author’s Guidelines for Buildings & Landscapes may be found here.

The editors of Buildings & Landscapes: Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum invite submissions of articles that explore the ways in which vernacular architecture constructs the every day. Our subject matter includes all aspects of vernacular architecture and urban, suburban, and rural landscapes seen through interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary methods. The editors encourage submission of scholarly articles that integrate fieldwork and archival/primary source research into original arguments about the history of everyday buildings and/or 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.

Manuscripts are considered on a rolling basis; authors may submit articles for consideration at any time. Articles submitted to Buildings & Landscapes will be assessed using a double-blind peer review process; manuscripts should not be submitted for publication elsewhere while under review by the journal. All scholars, students, and practitioners in the field are eligible to submit manuscripts; it is not necessary for articles to have been presented at VAF annual meetings, nor for contributors to be members of the VAF.

Manuscripts should conform to the Author Guidelines and The Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition). Please send electronic copies of completed articles (approximately 25 pages of text) with illustrations (10-20) and bibliographic endnotes to both editors. Please feel free to direct any inquiries to either editor via email:

Michael Chiarappa
michael.chiarappa1@gmail.com

Margaret Grubiak

Villanova University

margaret.grubiak@villanova.edu 

Daves Rossell

Savannah College of Art and Design

Accessing Buildings & Landscapes

All VAF members receive Buildings & Landscapes as a benefit of membership (in hard copy and via JSTOR). Subscriptions are also available through the University of Minnesota Press. Subscription rates:

Individuals:  $60.00 / year

Libraries:  $125.00 / year

Outside USA add $5.00 for each year's subscription

Past issues of Buildings & Landscapes can be purchased from the University of Minnesota Press. Members may access the digital version by clicking here.

Browse complete tables of contents on the University of Minnesota Press page.

Buildings & Landscapes Editorial Team

Co-Editors
Michael J. Chiarappa 

Margaret Grubiak, Villanova University

Book Review Editor

Daves Rossell, Savannah College of Art and Design

Illustration Editor

Laura Kilcer, Independent Scholar

Editorial Board

Anna Vemer Andrzejewski, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Catherine W. Bishir, editorial advisor, Preservation North Carolina  

James Michael Buckley, University of Oregon

Gretchen Buggeln, Christ College, Valparaiso University

Jennifer Cousineau, Parks Canada

Cynthia Falk, Cooperstown Graduate Program, SUNY-Oneonta

Jeffrey E. Klee, Colonial Williamsburg

Matthew G. Lasner 

Richard Longstreth, George Washington University

Sarah Lynn Lopez, University of Texas, Austin

Carl Lounsbury, William & Mary

William Moore, Boston University

Louis Nelson, University of Virginia

Dell Upton, University of California, Los Angeles