Largo da Oliveira
Guimarães
Photograph: Jorge Correia

Largo da Oliveira
Guimarães
Photograph: Jorge Correia

EAHN First International Meeting: Guimarães, Portugal
17-20 June 2010

Call for Session and Roundtable Proposals: Due Date 19 December 2008

The time has come for scholars who share research and teaching objectives in architectural history to gather at a single pan-European meeting. In accordance with the EAHN mission statement, this meeting proposes to increase the visibility of the discipline, to foster transnational, interdisciplinary and multicultural approaches to the study of the built environment, and to facilitate the exchange of research results in the field. Though the scope of the meeting is European, members of the larger scholarly community are invited to submit proposals related not only to Europe’s geographical framework, but also to its transcontinental aspects.

The main purpose of the meeting is to map the general state of research in disciplines related to the built environment, to promote discussion of current themes and concerns, and to foster new directions for research in the field.  Session proposals are intended to cover different periods in the history of architecture and different approaches to the built environment, including landscape and urban history. Parallel sessions will consist of either five papers or four papers and a respondent, with time for dialogue and questions at the end. In addition, a limited number of roundtable debates addressing burning issues in the field will also take place at the meeting. Proposals are sought for roundtable debates that re-map, re-define, and outline the current discipline. They will typically consist of a discussion between panel members and encourage debate with the audience. The goal is to create a forum in which different scholars can present and discuss their ideas, research materials and methodologies.

Scholars wishing to chair a scholarly session or a roundtable debate at the 2010 EAHN Meeting in Guimarães, Portugal, are invited to submit proposals by 19 December 2008 to jorge.correia@arquitectura.uminho.pt, Prof. Jorge Correia, General Chair of the EAHN First International Meeting, daaum, Departamento Autónomo de Arquitectura, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Azurém,
4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal. Phone: +351 253510503.

EAHN membership will be required to chair a session or roundtable, as well as to present research at the meeting. To join the EAHN, write to eahn@inha.fr.

Proposals in English of no more than 400 words including a session or roundtable title should summarize the subject and the premise. Please include name, professional affiliation (if applicable), address, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address, and a current CV. Proposals and short CVs should be submitted by e-mail, including the text in both the body of the e-mail and in the attachment. Session and roundtable proposals will be selected on the basis of merit and the need to organize a well-balanced program. A few open sessions or roundtables may be organized by the Advisory Committee, depending on the response to the following call for papers.

Further information can be found at www.eahn2010.org

Palace, Vila Flor Cultural Center
Guimarães, eighteenth century
part of the EAHN 2010 conference
facilities
Photograph: Jorge Correia

Castle of Guimarães,
twelfth-fifteenth centuries
Photograph: Jorge Correia

About Guimarães: The Venue of the EAHN First International Meeting Guimarães is located in the region of Minho in northern Portugal, around 50 km north of Porto. The city’s urban character ranges from its traditional and defined identity in the narrow urban fabric of the historical center to the outer city
displaying nineteenth-century bourgeois neighborhoods that formed around that center.

Essentially a medieval town, Guimarães has its origins in the tenth century when the Countess Mumadona Dias ordered the construction of a monastery which became the focal point for a settlement. For its defence she ordered a castle to be built on a hill a short distance away, thus creating a second nucleus
of development. Later the monastery acquired great importance due to the privileges and donations bestowed on it by kings and nobility. It became a famous center for pilgrimage attracting the prayers and promises of the faithful drawn from all quarters.

While the town continued to grow inside the walls which were erected to defend it, the orders of poor friars arrived in Guimarães and made their contribution to shaping the town. The twin nuclei subsequently merged into one so that by the fifteenth century the layout of the city within the walls had been established. Although some churches, monasteries and palaces would still be built, its appearence would not be significantly altered. At the end of the nineteenth century, with the advent of new ideas on public health and town planning, Guimarães was raised to the status of city by Queen D. Maria II and underwent major changes. The demolition of the city walls was authorized and encouraged,
new squares were opened, and new streets and avenues laid out. Almost all these interventions, however, were made in harmony with the conservation of the historic town center.

The city’s architectural jewels, most of them still organically integrated in its day-to-day life, include contributions by two of the most important Portuguese architects of the twentieth century: Marques da Silva and Fernando Távora.

Guimarães was declared a World Heritage Site in 2001 by unesco and it was chosen by the Portuguese government to be the European Capital of Culture in 2012. Thus, it makes the perfect venue for an architectural history meeting, where reflection and debate may be inspired by the city’s historic legacy.

The meeting will be held at the Centro Cultural Vila Flor in Guimarães www.ccvf.pt.