Call for Papers: "Islands" special issue of Fabrications, The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand

Date: Dec 03, 2024 - Feb 07, 2025

Fabrications The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand  invites papers for a special issue (35.3) guest edited by Ashley Paine (University of Queensland) and Kirsty Volz (Queensland University of Technology) on the theme of “Islands”. Papers are due on 7 February, 2025.

From spaces of isolation and independence, to archipelagos of connection and knowledge exchange, islands occupy a complex and evocative place in our terrestrial and imaginary worlds. In a Western worldview, islands are at once utopian and dystopian—places of refuge and exile, extravagance and exploitation, paradises and prisons—containing contradictions and contested spatial histories. They offer distance from which to look back and reflect on one’s place in the world, or connote severance from it as places of ostracization: petri dishes of extremism, claustrophobia, paranoia and self-isolation. At the same time, recent scholarship has challenged the insular and spatially bounded concept of islands, adopting an archipelagic approach to oceanic networks of rich interconnected histories that span across political, social and cultural spheres. Such tensions of connection and separation also play out in architectural practice—through islands of discourse and debates—historically visible in certain schools of practice as well as the work of independent practitioners and scholars. Islands are also shaped by architectural practices, from indigenous and colonial to modern and contemporary, from vernacular and regional to global and digital. Islands, therefore, emerge as both sites and subjects of critical historical research, and a lens or position through which to examine the past.

We invite papers that critically reflect upon the many possible interpretations of islands in architectural history: how islands have influenced the production and reception of architecture, and how architecture has contributed to the formation and transformation of island cultures, identities, and environments. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• The antipodean island-ness of Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand: Interrogations of physical and cultural distance, centre-periphery histories
• Historical studies of the island architecture and building cultures of Oceania—Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia
• Island Histories and Historiographies of Southeast Asia, Nanyang
• Islands of containment: Histories of island fortresses, immigration islands and detention facilities, island quarantine and isolation. COVID bubbles, and the biodomes of self-sustaining environments. The Eden Project, and Buckminster Fuller’s Dome over Manhattan
• Island networks: Archipelagic theory and approaches, oceanic perspectives. Re-thinking boundaries and borders, and redressing continental worldviews. Interconnected island histories and influences.
• Political islands: Architectures of sovereignty and independence, colonisation and control. Strategic islands for military outposts and regional interference. Excised islands. Spaces of exile, self-isolation, and the architecture of Brexit
• Islands of practice: Histories of regional schools and vernacular architectures, as well as solo and independent practitioners. Architecture and individualism, the lone auteur
• Girt by sea: Islands and water, riparian histories. Climate change and island heritage. The architecture and urbanism of floating markets, villages in Southeast Asia
• Island cities: Histories of urban islands. Manhattan. Venice (and Ruskin). Singapore. Dubai’s artificial islands. The city within the city – toward the archipelago
• Fictional islands and island imaginaries: Atlantis, Lilliput, Neverland, and Azkaban
• Islands and indulgence: Sanctuaries and retreats, Coney Island, and Japan’s ‘Art Islands’
• Paradise Island: Studies of island resort architecture. The Gold Coast’s canal islands (Chevron, Hope, Paradise); Bali and the work of Peter Muller. The island resorts of Christine Vadasz
• Treasure Island: Developers and their islands (Keith Williams at Hamilton and Daydream Islands; Alan Bond and Cockatoo Island; Christopher Skase and the island of Majorca)
• Desert island: Spaces of separation, solitude and remoteness

The deadline for papers is February 7, 2025. 

Questions about the special issue can be directed to the guest editors: Ashley Paine (a.paine@uq.edu.au) and Kirsty Volz (kirsty.volz@qut.edu.au)

For submission instructions and portal, go to: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?show=instructions&journalCode=rfab20