The Costs of Architecture Network is pleased to announce a call for paper abstracts for a series of workshops that will take place online over the course of Summer 2025.

The Costs of Architecture Network is a new forum for scholars who want to workshop works in progress (chapters, articles, etc.) that address questions related to costs in the history of architecture and the built environment. The forum aims to develop the thesis of a reading seminar carried out in 2024, itself based on the proposal of Grey Room 71: namely, that costs and cost data, long elided in architectural history, demand fuller engagement—an engagement that might have a definitive impact on architectural history writing. By costs we refer to the money costs of building in a literal sense, considering the quantification of building processes, but also to an open and expanding consideration of costs that includes broader themes of political economy. Works might thus consider specific cost-related aspects of architectural production such as waged or unwaged labor, materials, quantification, and valuation, but also topics more broadly related to architecture and political economy such as land, real estate, commerce, financialization, specification, and risk. We invite proposals from scholars at all stages of their career from architectural history and allied fields, including graduate students. Proposed papers may be single- or coauthored. For this current iteration, we welcome work focusing on any time period or geographic area.

The aim of the workshop is to foster critical, constructive exchanges about ongoing work among researchers working across the disciplinary boundaries of architectural history and—starting from costs—to convene discussions about new methods and domains of investigation.

If you are interested in workshopping a paper, please send the following as a single PDF to costs.of.architecturegmail.com:
• The title of the proposed paper
• An abstract (300 words max.) that describes the paper, specifies the nature of its engagement with the costs of architecture, and briefly describes the framework—methodological, theoretical, historiographic, contextual, etc.—which the paper engages
• A bibliography of 3–5 key secondary sources
• An indication of the nature of your paper (article, dissertation chapter, etc.)
• A short biography of up to 200 words for each author

The deadline for proposals is February 21, 2025. We will notify applicants in March. Workshop papers should be works in progress and will ideally be 5,000–7,000 words. Accepted applicants will be asked to submit their paper at least one week before their workshop date for precirculation.

Questions may be directed to Katie Filek and Chelsea Spencer, conveners of the summer 2025 workshop, at costs.of.architecturegmail.com.