Despite the emergence of new critical works on architectural history and practice beyond Euro-American frameworks, much of this thinking and writing remains focused on architects and planners and their role in the creation of space. This seminar seeks to challenge this approach by asking: who is behind the production of our built environment? By de-centering the architect in architectural studies, the seminar seeks to engage with and unearth actors and processes that have been overlooked or obscured in the study of architectural history and practice, including labor networks, building crafts, and building materials. This approach allows for questioning accepted categorizations of the built environment that are not produced by architects (including ‘vernacular’, ‘informal’, or ‘self-built’ architecture) through understanding how the conditions of scarcity and abundance have been central to the production of these built environments in the Global South, including the Middle East and North Africa. With this in mind, the seminar will examine the following themes: (1) materials, resources, and environmental challenges (2) histories and futures of labor and technology (3) design practice, building cultures, and imagined communities (4) the rural and the vernacular.

We invite contributions from scholars working on one or more of the symposium’s themes. We strongly encourage submissions from early career scholars.