Call for Papers

Architecture at the Ragged Edge of Empire:
Race, Place, Taste and the Colonial Context.

In his History of Queensland (2007), the historian Raymond Evans
described the penal outpost of Moreton Bay (est. 1824 and later to
become the colony of Queensland in 1859) as existing at the “ragged
edge of Empire.” Initially a site of secondary punishment­­ for
reoffending convicts, ensuring it was both geographically and morally
remote from the imperial centre, the later colony was also
climatically diverse (ranging from the sub-tropical to the tropical),
racially conflicted (the Indigenous population at times outnumbering
convicts and settlers four to one) and ethnically diverse (having the
highest percentage of mainland European migrants within the Australian
colonies). Undermining the ideal of a homogenous (British) settlement,
such contingencies also effectively threatened, in the words of Evans,
to undermine the creation of a new Britannia in the Southern
semi-tropics.

The aim of the symposium Architecture at the Ragged Edge of Empire:
Race, Place, Taste and the Colonial Context is to consider factors or
contingencies of the colonial experience that challenged, worked
against, or sat alongside the more formal (governmental)
representations of colonisation. It will also consider their impact
on, or expression through, colonial and/or settler architecture. While
colonial architecture is often assumed to approximate that of ‘home’,
especially in formal and material terms, a question regarding
architecture’s disciplinarity –it's conceptual framing as an aesthetic
or a high art - is often difficult to reconcile with the climatic,
geographical, ethnic and racial complexity of the colonial context. By
attaching architecture to philosophical and aesthetic concepts of
beauty (such as the sublime or picturesque) and artistic agency
(imagination, association, genius or judgement), western architecture
has also been historically linked to specific climatic, racial and
social ideals. Building on Kay Anderson’s thesis (2002) that European
contact with Australian Aborigines generated a “crisis” for
Enlightenment ideals of humanism, the symposium seeks to consider
whether the climatic, geographical, racial and ethnic variations
presented by the colonial context also challenged and/or altered
western conceptions of architectural practice.

Papers that consider factors or contingencies that challenge the
colonial context and its architectural representation are invited.
These may explore but are not limited to the following topics:

- Place
While the deterministic role of climate and landscape on
colonial architecture is commonly argued, the disciplinary positioning
of architecture within the colonial context is rarely considered. How
was the practice of architecture framed or viewed by architects
working in colonialsettings? Could the entanglement of taste
(architecture as a cultivated rather than mechanical art, painting
instead of engineering) be maintained? What effect did the
topographical and climatic diversity revealed by colonisation have?
Was architecture rendered mute or reduced to a technical practice in
such circumstances? Was it possible to cultivate an artistic practice
or architectural culture within tropical/sub-tropical/arid settings?
Did the aspiring artist/architect need to leave for more temperate
climes in order to develop an aesthetic sense or could these concerns
be addressed locally (southern versus northern colonies, or east
versus west)? Or, from a slightly difference perspective, did colonial
communities view climate as degenerate or redemptive, and did climate
theorists explicitly address the arts/ architecture alongside the
problems of labour and national character?

- Race
While British colonial institutions governed theearly penal and
settler societies of Australia, the populations of these new
communities were often heterogeneous, ethnically diverse, and racially
conflicted. In Australia, this was perhaps made most explicit by the
imbalance of settler and indigenous populations and the conflict and
dispossession that resulted, and further complicated by the ethnic
diversity of settler populations themselves. Such conditions were
often mirrored in colonial settlements the world over.

While racial and ethnic diversity and conflict are acknowledged as
attributes of the colonial condition, their impact on the architecture
of white settlement is less considered. How did issues of race, ethnic
heterogeneity, hybrid populations or racial conflict impact on
colonial architectural practice? Did architecture participate in
broader agendas of cultural representation, racial division and/or
'reform'? Did ethnic and racial diversity challenge the authority of
colonial institutions and/or Enlightenment and humanitarian values of
universality and equality? Were “hybrid” communities viewed, in
accordance with nineteenth century theories on race—as potentially
infertile, unproductive and lacking in character (Young 1995, Beasley
2010)— or did they make explicit and support alternative models, such
cosmopolitanism? Was the ‘other,’ external or internal, framed by
discourses other than that of colonisation or ‘empire’?

- Taste
A final issue to consider is the problem of taste. Within
Australia, colonised initially under a penal system and later through
free settlement and migration schemes, significant proportions of
early populations were often illiterate or semiliterate, valued for
their physical labour rather than their intellectual capacity.
Cultural refinement, as Evans has suggested, though not entirely
lacking, often remained somewhat at a discount—at best a luxury and at
worst a distraction. What role did the concept of ‘taste’ play in
these societies? What was the impact on the practice of architecture
of such a demographic mix? How was architecture viewed by such
communities (technical practice or higher art) and was it valued? Did
architecture, and the broader arts, play a role in the lives,
education and ‘improvement’ of such communities or was it the sole
domain of government and a wealthy elite? Was a culture of
architectural taste developed and if so how and by whom?

This symposium invites papers that consider the above and related
issues, both within Australia and other colonial contexts. We invite
abstracts of up to 300 words for 20-minute papers.

Please submit abstracts to Deborah van der Plaat
(d.vanderplaatuq.edu.au) no later than May 10.