[ Calls for Papers ]

The theme for the 2006 conference of Docomomo, the International Committee for the Documentation and Conservation of Monuments and Sites of the Modern Movement, will be "Other Modernisms". Abstracts for the event to be held in Ankara from September 27-29, 2006, dealing with non-Western modernisms, should be submitted by September 19, 2005. NINTH INTERNATIONAL DOCOMOMO CONFERENCE

CALL FOR PAPERS
Conference theme: “Other Modernisms”
Location: Istanbul/Ankara, Turkey
Date: September 27-29, 2006
Deadline for submission: September 19, 2005
Official website: http://www.docomomo.org.tr

CONFERENCE THEME

The theme of the 2006 Conference, “Other Modernisms” proceeds from the consensus that the mainstream historiographic construction of 20th century modernism through its canonic texts and buildings has marginalized or left out entirely, some modern trajectories that are now gaining an unprecedented new legitimacy as the subject matter of revisionist histories. Today the exclusive, totalizing and teleological histories of modern architecture are highly suspect and the presumed internal consistency and morphological integrity of modernism is no longer taken for granted by recent critical approaches in line with contemporary scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Recent literature has shed light on the differences within orthodox modernism itself, and hence questioned its canonical definitions. In addition, “non-western” contexts from Asia, Africa to South America or to the east of Europe, have been increasingly studied to broaden the limits of modernist production beyond Western Europe and North America, which were hitherto seen as centers of Modernism. Instead of a modernist mainstream, we now talk about a plurality of modernisms both within the global context and within individual societies comprising it. Similarly, the extensive network of Docomomo does not confine itself to canonical centers of Modernism, and is already a step toward the recognition of different and distant modernisms.

“Other modernisms” is employed as a broad umbrella term to designate not only the experiences of non-European and non-North American cultures, but a wide range of architectural and urban practices everywhere that fall outside the familiar, official accounts of modern architecture.

As such, the “other” in our title is meant to provoke a range of different readings of the conference theme including but not limited to: the “non-western” others of a predominantly western modernism (colonial encounters, exile, emigration, diasporas, trans-national histories etc); the national, regional or local others of “international style” (various searches for “national expression” within 20th century modernism); the subaltern others of homogeneous modern identities (i.e. race, gender and class as they have informed modern spatial practices); the anonymous, vernacular or “ordinary” others of canonic modernism (such as generic slab-block apartments or squatter zones); the “hybrid” others of a pure, pristine modernism (eclectic variations, multiple identities, cross-breeds); the “underdeveloped” others of advanced, industrial modernisms (low-tech, appropriate tech, infrastructure projects, materials, building industry, labor, capital, patronage etc); the preservationist others of a transient, design-oriented, utopian conception of the modern (the idea of modern architecture as repository of collective memory, as “heritage”); the temporal others of a linear modernist history that has peaked in two periods: interwar and postwar (i.e. time-lags, synchrony, diachrony, pioneers, latecomers etc).

In the spirit of the above premises, Docomomo 2006 seeks contributions from scholars, educators, researchers, design and preservation professionals, and policy and law-makers with different perspectives: theoretical investigations, historical research, socio-cultural analyses, documentation and inventory work, case studies, design, restoration, conservation, rehabilitation and re-use projects, policy proposals, pedagogical programs and artistic production among others. Contributions should be directed to one of the following sub-themes and keywords) that cut across the issues posed above:

Definitions, Boundaries, Paradigms
Mobilization and Exchange
Identities and Subjectivities
Technologies, Processes, Practices
Urbanism, Development, Landscape
Everyday Modernism(s) and Popular Culture



Forwarded by Docomomo International on behalf of Docomomo Turkey

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