You can download a PDF version of these Minutes here.

EAHN : European Architectural History Network
Third Annual Meeting Leuven, 8-10 February 2008.

Summary from the EAHN Annual committee meeting at Leuven, February 2008
Location: Castle of Arenberg, K.U. Leuven


SUMMARY OF PROCEEDINGS

Friday, February 8 2008

The members present already on Friday afternoon, 8 February 2008 were welcomed by Andre Loeckx of the KU Leuven, department of Architecture, Urbanism and Planning. The afternoon consisted of a forum about Belgian research on the history of architecture. This forum was organised by Prof. Hilde Heynen, Prof. Luc Verpoest and Prof. Krista De Jonge. Belgian institutes were invited to present their research projects and aims.
The following institutes gave a presentation:
•    KU Leuven, Architectural History and Conservation (Krista De Jonge),
•    UGent Art, Music and Theatre Sciences (Linda van Santpoort),
•    U.A. Centre for Urban History (Inge Bertels),
•    UGent, Theory and History of Architecture( Dirk de Meyer),
•    St. Lucas Department Architecture (Sven Sterken),
•    KU Leuven OSA (Hilde Heynen),
•    TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture (Tom Avermaete),
•    VIOE ( Leen Meganck),
•    PHL (Koenraad van Cleempoel),
•    Henry vd Velde Institute (Piet lombaerde),
•    KADOC (Bram Cleijs),
•    CVAa (Sofie de Caigny).

After the presentations, on behalf of the EAHN, Christine Mengin thanked the representatives of KU Leuven for their contribution to the EAHN meeting. She welcomed everybody who was interested to attend the EAHN meeting on Saturday.
After the forum a reception was held in De Salons at the University.

.
 
 

Saturday, February 9 2008

At ten o’clock in the morning the meeting at the University started and Christine Mengin welcomed all the committee members and other participants:

-    Nancy Stieber NS
-    Christine Mengin CM
-    Hilde Heynen HH
-    Susan Klaiber SK
-    Rob Dettingmeijer RD
-    Ivan Nevzgodin IN
-    Jan Molema JM
-    Reto Geiser RG
-    Jan Kenneth Birksted (new) JKB
-    Karin Theunissen KT
-    Andrew Ballantyne AB
-    Alona Nitzan-Shiftan ANS
-    Bernd Kulawik BK
-    Carmen Popescu CP
-    Jorge Correia (new) JC
-    Isabel van der Zande (secretariat) IZ
Krista De Jonge joined the meeting briefly.

Agenda :

1.    Activity Report
2.    Financial Report
3.    Tours
4.    Conference Guimaraes

Lunch Break: Tour to Library by Rafael Moneo

5.    Zurich Conference
6.    Publications
7.    Membership and mailing list
8.    Bibliographic project
9.    Funding / Delft Office
10.    Thematic Subgroups
11.    Relationships with other institutions
12.    Next on Calendar
13.    Election new committee members
14.    Next meeting EAHN


 

1    EAHN 2007 Activity report (CM)

CM presented the report of the network’s activities. EAHN’s new 2007 accomplishments comprise :
-    The creating of the first EAHN newsletter. An applause was given to RG, SK and NS for the amount of work and the incredible result.
-    The EAHN company logo and identity created by RG that has contributed a lot to the EAHN, for example the bookmark, developed for the Pittsburgh meeting. But also new business cards for all committee members, website design, etc.
-    The contribution of TU Delft, RMIT to the EAHN by offering employment for an EAHN secretariat, coordinated by Isabel van der Zande.

2    EAHN 2007 Financial report (CP)

The EAHN bank account balance is currently approximately €1700,00. Payments of the new business cards, printed by RG still have to be made (€ 960,00)
Costs for bookmarks, printing of brochures, official stamp, etc : +/- € 200,00
A possibility for extra financial support is for the committee members to give more than the usual € 10,00 fee each year.
JM announces that his foundation STAG (analysis of buildings) will double the amounts above € 10,00. CP collects the fees from all the committee members,
a total amount of € 312,00 is collected, STAG donates € 162,00. For which the EAHN is very grateful.

Balance            1700
Costs business cards    960 -
Costs Pittsburgh        200 -
Fee members        312
Donation STAG        162
TOTAL            1014

Carmen suggests the EAHN seriously has to think about other financial support.
SK mentioned we could get more money out of the tours.

IZ will set up an inquiry form which will be sent to all committee members so they can fill in the time and expenses they have so far donated to the EAHN.
IZ will inquire about a bank account in the Netherlands.
JM suggests that the faculty of Delft (not RMIT) could perhaps sponsor our website. He will try to find out once a budget is established
We also need a fundraising committee. Budget plan : We have to make a budget list for the next couple of years and ask for funding for the difference between income and outgoing.

3    Tours (CP)

CP reports about the failed tours for Barcelona and Sibiu. There were too few participants and the tours were cancelled. During the Berlin meeting the aims of the tours were pointed out and precised afterwards in Delft:
•    To contribute to the development of the network (by meeting local scholars, who act as guides)
•    To contribute to the exchange of knowledge (little-known venues, use of local experts)
•    Offer people an alternative to SAH tours, which are very expensive and for the happy few.
•    To contribute to “broaden” the geography of architectural history (by including “peripheral” and less documented areas in the current western historiography).

Because the tours are also a way to make money, we have to think about how to organize a successful tour like Ljubljana.
Points raised in discussion included:
Expand members and activities by reaching more people by advertisement and publicity, like newsletter, tour announcements sent to a variety of listservs, etc.
Unusual types of tours.
Organized by professional travel agency and/or guided tours, but this will overprice the trip.
Only for groups between 10-15 people.
Join other tours or events from other organizations, joining financial and organizing effort
Tours should consist of a specific thematic plan to take advantage of an existing event such as conferences, symposia etc.
A tour idea for Russia was sketched already last year by Ivan and Inessa Kouteinikova. The tour might be operative for 2009.

CP will finish some proposals for a Romanian tour in July 2008 for committee response.
SK : The Virtual Tour in the March issue of the newsletter will be about Seljuk architecture in Turkey; in June it will be about Groningen; others have been suggested for Poland, Porto etc. Perhaps some of those virtual tours can be transformed into real tours.
CM: aim of EAHN is to connect people in the field that is now splintered. Networking is the most important goal, to strengthen the milieu by these activities.

4    EAHN Conference Guimaraes 2010 (JC)

General: The idea that EAHN could hold it’s own conferences has been considered since the beginning. AT the gathering in Pittsburgh, Jorge Correia (University of Minho) came with the proposal to organize the first EAHN Conference in 2010, in Guimaraes (Portugal), anticipating Guimaraes’ role as European cultural capital in 2012. This will be the first conference organized exclusively by EAHN and will be important as an opportunity to extend the network of scholars.

JC explained that the conference has the support of his department and the university of Minho in Guimaraes. Meeting with municipality resulted in a 50% discount in the rent of the venue and provision by the municipality of tour buses. Due to the elections in 2009 in Portugal, no more offers can be made by the municipality until then. In addition to the participants’ registration fees, other possibilities for funding should be sought from Portuguese sources. HH mentioned that EU funding is very difficult to get.

JC presented two drafts of the meeting schedule, one shorter, one longer. He has already established an executive committee within his department. There is also the possibility of collaboration with the Centre for Overseas History. JC proposed to call the event the first annual conference of the EAHN in order to suggest that there will be further conferences in the future (which will incorporate the annual business meeting of the EAHN). Some committee members expressed the opinion that holding an annual meeting is too ambitious. One suggestion is to make it biannual and to call the conference in 2010 the First international meeting. At the conference the host for the following conference will be elected so that there are two years to prepare.
The committee selects the short version of the meeting : Thursday-Sunday around 18 June 2010. Krista De Jonge mentioned that for Renaissance scholars that date coincides with their annual conference and that for Belgian colleagues a June date is inconvenient because it coincides with the end of semester.
JC also presented the draft for a call for papers: The call for sessions can be launched in Cincinnati in April 2008 at the SAH meeting. The call for papers will be launched the next year at the Pasadena SAH meeting in 2009.

12.00 – 13.00

Tour guided by Krista De Jonge to the KU Leuven library by Rafael Moneo.

13.00 – 13.30 Lunch break

At the start of the second part of the meeting, RG’s beautifully designed business cards are handed out and acclaimed. CM asks RG if it would be possible to make a poster with all the cards and the reference to the website to take to the SAH Cincinnati meeting.

4    Continuing discussion of Guimaraes:

BK proposes a specific session about countries and their architectural history institutes, like the presentations yesterday on Flemish institutions at the KU Leuven. RG suggests a poster session or a lunch break session. Another possibility is a presentations by institutes of the hosting country alone.

Will it be a themed conference or an open conference? If there is no theme, there is no need for a scientific committee. The advisory committee should consist of people of the EAHN committee as well and a member of the SAH. 6-8 people would decide about the session proposals.. If EAHN committee members propose sessions, they cannot participate in the advisory committee. The advisory committee should include people from different parts of Europe..

The call for papers should be written to encourage submissions that push the boundaries of the field, are interdisciplinary, etc..
BK suggested looking at architectural history from other disciplines like archaeology, philosophy,. cultural studies, etc.

AB suggested that the call for sessions themes should be open and unrestricted in order to encourage growth in the field. After the proposals have been received, the committee can add topics that are missing. .
ANS mentions that giving the conference a theme will encourage people to become engaged with the same subject from a different point of view.
NS suggests we differentiate between :
-    A general theme that encourages certain kind of sessions.
-    Identification of topics we absolutely want to include (archives, transnational, etc)

IN adds the importance of an explanation of European vs. national architectural history
And also :defining a discipline – the European perspective of architectural history.
CP stresses that the topics should help in reframing, reconsidering the discipline.
CM : an important theme question is : What is the use of architectural history?

After the Cincinnati meeting there should be a call for sessions proposals in the June issue of the newsletter. HH adds that knowledge of keynote speakers in advance will encourage response to the call for papers.
NS encourages structuring the sessions in a way to make discussion possible. But these ideas should be discussed in a small committee group.
JB : Round table sessions will encourage good discussions. So another idea is to also ask for call for round table proposals.
At the end of the committee meeting today, a special Guimaraes subcommittee meeting will take place.

5     Zurich Conference 2008 (RG)

The conference Transfer and Metamorphosis sponsored by the ETH Zurich, SAH and EAHN will take place in June. It will start at Thursday evening June 26 with a keynote speaker.
Friday there will be a keynote speaker and two parallel sessions each in the morning and afternoon. Saturday morning there will be two more parallel sessions and in the afternoon 4 tours are organized to Zurich and Basel.
Sunday there is a tour to La Chaux-de-Fonds to visit early houses by Le Corbusier.
www.transferandmetamorphosis.org

On Friday June 27 an EAHN event is planned for 16.30 to 17.30 with a reception following, provided by the ETH Zurich. The EAHN event will present our activities : the EAHN newsletter, website, conference Guimaraes. etc.
SK will coordinate this meeting with NS and RD. They will print brochures etc.

6    Publications (NS)

Newsletter :

In December 2007, the first EAHN Newsletter was sent out due to the hard work of NS, RG and SK. RD, CM, DN, AT and CP also contributed texts and we should also be grateful to the correspondents .
The next issue will be again in PDF, in June or perhaps September the newsletter will be send out as a HTML file, connected to the new website.
The current website has served us well until now, but given the design of the business cards, brochure, and newsletter, the website should be brought into alignment with the organization’s graphic identity.
NS explains that help is needed for the newsletter:
-    For the rubrics Explorations and Virtual Tour that appear in each issue of the newsletter, SK needs recommendations for institutes and sites.
-    We need correspondents for Denmark, Ireland, Iceland, Luxembourg, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine. In some countries, teams of correspondents are needed, to represent a variety of points of view and to share the workload. IN says he will act as correspondent for Russia for 1 year if nobody else is recruited.
-    Book and exhibition review editors are needed, in addition to RD and Dietrich Neumann
-    SK and NS propose a new rubric in the newsletter to cover conferences.  Suggestions for possible a possible conference report editor are requested.

Website :

Simon Kaegi will help us develop the new website with the concept conceived by NS, RG’s design and the layout developed by NS, SK, BK and RG. Susan is willing to contribute a large amount for the design of the website. Dietrich also wants to contribute. Website should be finished before Cincinnati and Zurich.
More images without copyright are needed for the website. IZ will set up a Flickr account for images,to be collected from everybody (to upload images JPG or TIF. 300 DPI).

7    Membership and mailing list (CP)

Nancy will ask Cynthia Field at SAH about their mailing list and if we can forward messages of the SAH to our listserv.
We have to start thinking about paying for membership. Start with small institutional fee for membership in 2009, next year 2010 also individual fees.
RD will talk to institutes and coordinate ideas about memberships, etc. ; he will establish a committee without himself in the end. He will only start it up.
A large mailing list of institutions is being built by SK and NS, with the volunteer labor of Stewart Abbot and the donated time of two student assistants of ANS, Adi Pessach and Michal Apfelberg.

8    Bibliographic project (NS)

Short term goal: to collect the listings of recently published books from correspondents to publish in newsletter and website.
Longer term project : a database of publications on architectural history with searchable categories. This will entail a multi-year project that will involve a committee of librarians, organization of a panel at Guimaraes, and a proposal for major funding. NS spoke about the project with Patricia van Alkhoven and Mariet Willinge of the NAi in October and they are interested in collaboration. The project needs leadership from our committee.
IN mentioned that the RIBA maintains a database of articles. Creation of a database of books is major goal of the EAHN. The first step will be an inquiry among librarians of architectural collections. CM will be able to take a more active role after 8 months. Nancy will follow up with Patricia and Mariet.

9    Funding and Delft office

These issues are discussed in other categories, like finances.

 

10    Thematic Subgroups

(courthouses, colonial architecture, Eastern Europe)
Will be discussed in relation to Guimaraes conference

11    Relationships with other institutions

SK is creating a new mailing list with approximately 700 institutes and people so we can send announcements to a broader public. This will help in building the network. See point 7 above.

12    Next on calendar:

-    Cincinnati, SAH annual meeting, April 2008 : JC and HH, JC will take charge of meeting. IZ will print brochures, and give it to Marie Therese van Thoor.
-    Zurich meeting June 2008
-    Docomomo meeting Rotterdam, September 2008

13    Election of EAHN officers and Committee members.

Jan Kenneth Birksted and Jorge Correia are elected and welcomed to the EAHN organization as new committee members; the current officers and committee members are unanimously confirmed for 2008.

14    EAHN next business meeting:

Belgin has proposed that Ankara will host the annual meeting next year, during the second weekend of January 9-10 January. JC would prefer later date, his presence will be important for the Guimaraes conference. So perhaps 16-18 January is better ?
The program will consist of Friday afternoon subcommittee meetings, and Saturday an Sunday morning business meeting.
IZ will receive information from Belgin.

19.00- 22.00

Dinner party at Restaurant Le Voltaire, hosted by the KU Leuven.

Sunday, February 10 2008

9.00 - 12:00

Meeting of the Publications subcommittee in the Heverlee Lodge

12.00 - 16.00

Visit to the city centre of Leuven.