Call for Papers: Rhetoric and Architecture after Renaissance Humanism
(1600-1900)

Society of Architectural Historians 59th Annual Meeting, 26-29 April
2006, Savannah, Georgia

Members and friends of the Society of Architectural Historians are
invited to submit paper abstracts by 10 September 2005 for a thematic
session on Rhetoric and Architecture after Renaissance Humanism
(1600-1900) as described below. Abstracts of no more than 300 words
are to be headed with the applicant's name, professional affiliation
[graduate students in brackets], and title of paper. Submit with the
abstract a short résumé, home and work addresses, telephone and fax
numbers, and e-mail address. Abstracts should define the subject and
summarize the argument to be presented in the proposed paper. The
content of that paper should be the product of well-documented
research that is primarily analytical and interpretative than
descriptive in nature. A complete call for papers for the conference
can be read at http://www.sah.org

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Call for Papers: Rhetoric and Architecture after Renaissance Humanism
(1600-1900)

The importance of rhetoric as a model for architecture during the
Renaissance is well studied. Scholars have explained how Quattrocento
theorists in need of firm rules for architecture have borrowed
principles of this theory of human communication laid down in
antiquity. They have shown that Renaissance architects could even
follow methods developed in rhetoric in their creative process.
Rhetorical concepts such as inventio, dispositio, or decorum became
categories through which architects went about their work and by which
their creations could be discussed and judged.

This session will consider the relationship between rhetoric and
architecture after their Renaissance symbiosis and until rhetoric’s
decline during the Nineteenth century. Papers are invited which trace
the evolution of the rhetorical model in the art of building,
particularly when that discipline came in contact with other concepts
developed in the physical and human sciences during the Baroque
period, the Enlightenment, or the Industrial Age.

Did the waning of humanistic studies that began in the Seventeenth
century change the status of rhetoric in the visual arts? Did the
scientific revolution shake the foundations of an architectural theory
based on persuasive expression? What happened to the rhetorical model
in architecture when sensation and embodiment were first addressed in
theories of knowledge? Did the emergence of architectural history in
the Eighteenth century shatter the belief in the universal system of
expression proposed by rhetoric? Can the nineteenth-century concepts
of style and “organic unity” be legitimately traced back to their
rhetorical origins?

Detailed case studies on the theory and/or practice of architecture
based on original research are specially encouraged. Send proposals by
10 September 2005 to:

Jean-François Bédard

Visiting Scholar, Canadian Centre for Architecture

1920, rue Baile, Montréal (Québec), H3H 2S6, Canada

tel.: 514-939-7000; fax: 514-939-7020

Email: jb353columbia.edu

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