Piedmontese Baroque Architecture Studies Fifty Years On

Roundtable at the European Architectural History Network Third International
Meeting, Turin, 19- 21 June 2014

Call for Papers

The current decade marks the fiftieth anniversary of the great flowering of
studies on Piedmontese Baroque architecture during the 1960s. Proceeding from pioneering works of the 1950s such as Rudolf Wittkower's chapter
"Architecture in Piedmont" in his Art and Architecture in Italy 1600-1750
(1958), or Paolo Portoghesi's series of articles and brief monograph on
Guarini (1956), international and local scholars like Henry Millon, Werner
Oechslin, Mario Passanti, and Nino Carboneri produced an impressive array of publications on the period. Some of the milestones of this scholarly output
include the architecture section of the exhibition Mostra del Barocco
Piemontese (1963), Andreina Griseri's Metamorfosi del Barocco (1967), and
Richard Pommer's Eighteenth-Century Architecture in Piedmont (1967). This
scholarship culminated in major international conferences on Guarini (1968)and Vittone (1970), as well as the initiation of the Corpus Juvarrianum in 1979.

This roundtable aims to commemorate the golden age of studies on Piedmontese Baroque architecture through a critical assessment of the heritage of the 1960s. Have Griseri's and Pommer's "challenging" (Wittkower) concepts proven robust? Does a traditional geographic-stylistic designation remain fruitful for investigating a region whose two major architects built throughout Europe and whose ruling dynasty entered supraregional marriage alliances? Do recent interdisciplinary methodologies - drawing from fields like geography, sociology, or history of science - reframe the roles of agents like civic authorities, construction workers, or military engineers? Has new material evidence altered long-held assumptions?

Discussion positions may directly address historiography or methodology of
the 1960s, or present alternative approaches in the form of case studies or new research projects that critically engage with this historic body of scholarship on Piedmontese Baroque architecture, urbanism, and landscape.

At its previous conferences, the EAHN did not highlight the architecture of
the host region in dedicated panels. Turin, however, arguably presents an
ideal venue for an international roundtable with regional focus: then as
now, Piedmont is a major European crossroad for cultural influences from the Italian peninsula, France and Spain, northern Europe, and the former
Hapsburg empire. Piedmontese Baroque architecture continues to occupy both
local and international scholars, as demonstrated by the recent series of
monographic conferences in Turin on architects like Alfieri, Garove, and
Juvarra organized by the Bibliotheca Hertziana together with the Venaria
Reale consortium. Breaking out of these monographic constraints, this
roundtable will provide an opportunity to reflect on where the field has
been during the past half century, as well as where it might go in the next
fifty years.

Deadline for proposals: 30 September 2013

Please submit proposals for ten-minute discussion positions with CV through
the submissions portal on the EAHN 2014 conference website between 15 April and 30 September 2013.

Roundtable chair: Susan Klaiber

Multimedia-enhanced CFP:
http://susanklaiber.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/piedmontese-baroque-architecture-studies-fifty-years-on/

Conference website:
http://www.eahn2014.polito.it/index.html