Speaking of Buildings

Oral History in Architectural Research

Naomi Stead, Janina Gosseye, Deborah van der Plaat, Naomi Stead, Janina Gosseye, Deborah van der Plaat

• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781616897543
• eBook ISBN: 9781616898908
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: History of Architecture

By and large, architectural historians use texts, drawings, and photographs to craft their narratives. Oral testimony from those who actually occupy or construct buildings is rarely taken as seriously. Speaking of Buildings offers a rebuttal, theorizing the radical potential of a methodology that has historically been cast as unreliable. Essays by an international group of scholars look at varied topics, from the role of gossip in undermining masculine narratives in architecture to workers' accounts of building with cement in midcentury London to a sound art piece created by oral testimonies from Los Angeles public housing residents. In sum, the authors call for a renewed form of listening to enrich our understanding of what buildings are, what they do, and what they mean to people.

index

A

Aalto, Alvar, 34, 48, 83

Aboriginal Environments Research Centre, 161, 170, 172

Aboriginal 170–72, 296–98

activist, 158, 170, 296

case worker, 32

culture, 166, 171–72

community, 154, 171

people, 158, 162, 164, 170

society, 162, 171

Abrams, Lynn, 10, 15, 21–22, 74, 86, 91, 93, 95, 111, 148, 151, 153, 213, 218, 256, 265–66

Action Archive, 27, 94–96, 98–101, 104, 107, 108, 109, 111–13, 275

activist, 10, 19, 99, 107, 111, 116–17, 119–21, 123–26, 128–30, 134, 138, 142, 150, 151, 158, 170, 186, 240, 247, 272

potential, 117, 273

practice, 116, 121

Adams, David, 14–15, 22, 151

advocacy, 116, 120, 123

Agrest, Diana, 12, 21, 284

AIATSIS. See Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies

Alberti, Leon Battista, 222–23, 233

Alexander, Jeanne, 182–83, 196

Aliefendioğlu, Hanife, 211

Aliso Extension (Los Angeles), 135–36, 151

Aliso Village (Los Angeles), 135–38, 140–43, 146, 151–53

Alliance of Women in Architecture, 253–54

American Institute of Architects, 253, 264

Amery, Colin, 77, 82

Andersson, Monica, 103, 112

anecdote, 56, 70, 77, 81, 83–86, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Introduction: A Short History of Silence: The Epistemological Politics of Architectural Historiography
• I. Constructing History
• II. Restitution Histories/Disrupting History
• III. The Unspoken and the Unspeakable
• Conclusion: Ways to Listen Anew: What Next for Oral History and Architecture?
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Index
• Copyright