International conference of the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” at Heidelberg University (Global Art History), the German Centre of Art History in Paris, University of Poitiers (CRIHAM/Department of Art History and Archaeology), the Centre André Chastel (CNRS/University Paris-Sorbonne) and the Association d’Histoire de l’Architecture (A.H.A).

Concept: Michael Falser (Heidelberg University)

In the last twenty years, architectural historiography approached regionalism as a pan-European movement between 1890 and 1950 which, as a flipside of the International Modern Movement with its rationalist and cosmopolitan agenda, helped to reinforce regional identities through the language of regionalist building styles. When European nation states such as France, Great Britain, Netherlands, Germany etc. entered a late-modern phase of political saturation and a stronger need of cultural self-definition, architectural regionalism emerged as a polymorphic set of artistic strategies: fostered either by centralist regimes to stabilize the national project through a higher (however controlled) valorisation of its peripheral elements, or by centrifugal forces towards provincial independence. In France, for example, this regionalist movement was particularly developed through a whole range identity-building structures in neo-Basque, neo-Breton etc. styles, but also in a kind of regionalist eclecticism for seaside architecture.

Latest projects to write a ‘global history of architecture’ or a canon of ‘world architecture’ comprised of rather additive architectural case-studies around the globe with an ordering system along geographic and political entities (Europe or Non-Europe), but did not yet transpose the above-mentioned scenario to the global arena: in comparing the strategies of political and cultural stabilization, negotiation and/or resistance through architectural regionalism, a structural analogy of the centre-periphery model can also be detected between the European metropole and its overseas colonies, resp. between those colonies’ capitals and their own provinces. If ‘area studies’ identified similar regionalist policy changes from cultural assimilation (direct transfer) to association (regional adaptation) for European colonies in Asia and Africa during the same period (1890-1950), then the emerging ‘neo-vernacular styles’ in the colonies (such as the Style indochinois in French Indochina or the ‘neo-Mauresque’ style in French North Africa, the Indo-Saracenic Style in British India, or the Indische Stijl in the Dutch East Indies etc.) – can be read as Non-European variants of ‘regionalist styles’ in the European nation states. This ‘trans-cultural’ approach frames the diverse regionalist formations of architectural styles and forms as one globally connected process.

Transnational approaches to set the different European colonial contexts within the first half of the 20th century in relation to each other can also help to conceptualise the recent inter-related effects between globalisation and decentralisation (like in France) where the notions of the global and the local are often enmeshed simultaneously in contemporary architecture.

Conceptualizing Global Connectivity in Architectural History

Requested case studies can focus either on regionalist and (neo-)vernacular architectural style formations within European nation states or in European colonies. In order to conceptualize a transcultural matrix of global connectivity between the different forms of regionalist expressions beyond the strict divide of West or Non-West, Europe or Non-Europe, metropole or colony, colonizer or colonized, the different presentations will be set in direct relation to each other (e.g. France vs. French Indochina etc.). To facilitate the discussion of structural analogies and connections across those divides, the presentations should address the following questions on agency and process beyond a mere stylistic analysis:

• In which centre-periphery constellation was the particular regionalist project embedded?
• Which individual actors (architects, engineers, ethnographers, politicians) and institutions participated (or not) in the project?
• To which kind of regional/vernacular expressions and traditions was referred to, and how were those collected, valorised, hybridized or (re)invented, and finally applied?
• Did the different projects, institutional agencies and individual agents (cultural brokers) cross the lines between the divides of the national vs. regional, metropole vs. colony etc.?
• Where there any platforms of knowledge exchange involved across those divides (scientific journals, national/colonial congresses, exhibitions and fairs, individual networks etc.?

The international conference in French, English and German will take place from 30 November to 2 December 2016 at the German Center for Art History in Paris. It is a collaborative exercise between the Cluster of Excellence ‘Asia and Europe in a Global Context – The Dynamics of Transculturality’ at Heidelberg University (and its project “Picturesque Modernities”, directed by Michael Falser/Global Art History), the German Centre of Art History in Paris (directed by Thomas Kirchner), the University of Poitiers (Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire en histoire, histoire de l’art et musicologie/CRIHAM, with its project “Corpus numérique du patrimoine architectural en région”, directed by Nabila Oulebsir), the Centre André Chastel (CNRS/University Paris-Sorbonne, directed by Alexandre Gady) and the Association d’Histoire de l’Architecture (directed by Jean-Baptiste Minnaert/University Paris-Sorbonne).

This conference is the second event after the International Conference “Picturesque Eye. Framing Regionalist Art Forms in Late Empires (1900-1950)” which took place in Vienna/Austria in December 2015 (http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/the-picturesque-eye).

After this 1,5-day conference and half-day workshop for PhD-candidates is planned. Proposals for this workshop are also welcome.

Applicants are asked to send a proposal (max. 300 words, one to two illustrations) to [email protected], by the deadline of 15 August 2016. Please include the title of the contribution, an abstract and a short bio-sketch of the speaker with affiliation and contact details. The decision about the selection of contributions will be announced in September 2016.

Conference Website: http://www.asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de/en/global_regionalism