New York City
gta Archiv/ETH Zürich
Nachlass Werner M. Moser

Transfer and Metamorphosis: Architectural Modernity
Between Europe and the Americas 1870–1970

European Architectural History Network Joint International Conference with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETH) and the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH)
26 June–29 June 2008

Organized by the EAHN committee member Professor Dietrich Neumann of Brown University together with Professor Andreas Tönnesmann of the ETH Zurich, this conference will consider Europe and the Americas as a continuous and highly productive space of architectural communication. It seeks to elucidate the processes of assimilation and modification that happened to forms, ideas and concepts of architectural modernity during their transfer from one continent to another.  Some areas of these processes are relatively well known. Figures such as William Lescaze, Richard Neutra, Walter Gropius or Ludwig Mies van der Rohe stand for a European presence in the architecture of North America, while European “Amerikanismus” introduced issues of high-rise building and urban growth, mass production and prefabrication to the architectural debates. The conference would like to broaden the view beyond  such established phenomena to include the period of political consolidation and economic growth on both continents after ca. 1870 and the postwar period before the growing impact of globalization on architectural practice. The less known contacts between Mediterranean countries and Latin America also deserve attention. The conference will seek to reach beyond the transfer of formal or functional  ideas and consider the entire field of architectural history and theory, as well as the rich conditions of architectural production.
The European Architectural History Network thanks the ETH Zurich for the opportunity to be involved in organizing “Transfer and Metamorphosis”. Committee members will offer a presentation of the EAHN at the conference, including discussion with conference participants regarding the network’s future development.