We Have Looked for 4,000 Years; Now We Have Seen!
(2025) We Have Looked for 4,000 Years; Now We Have Seen! — Location: Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) - SAH Women in Architecture Affiliate Group (27.March.2025)
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- Abstract
- Conference organised in collaboration with the SAH Women in Architecture Affiliate Group in occasion of International Women’s Day. Chairs: Prof. Beatrice Lampariello, Prof. Silvia Groaz, Bianca Felicori. Speakers: Léa-Catherine Szacka; Anne Massey; Helen Thomas, Emilie Appercé, Jaehee Shin, Estelle Gagliardi (Women Writing Architecture). In her 1970 manifesto Female Revolt, art critic Carla Lonzi underscores a pivotal shift: women, no longer confined to the role of passive observers, break free as active protagonists capable of charting new directions for the present and the future. “We have looked for 4,000 years; now we have seen!”, she announced. We are hosting a session to which researchers, scholars, and practitioners are invited. The aim is to offer a platform to explore how women embraced the transformative shift from passive “looking” to active “seeing” critically interrogating their roles in reshaping architectural narratives. Panelists examine the multifaceted ways in which women—writers, historians, theorists, editors, curators, directors, archivists—have redefined the way we discuss, interpret, and see architecture. Presentations without temporal or geographical restrictions address the following themes: the efforts by women to confront and disrupt canonical and dominant historical narratives; the impact of feminist paradigms on historiography through approaches based on difference, equality, constructionist and intersectional thinking; the redefinition of authorship and authority within architectural histories; the expansion of the architecture canon to include diverse and pluralistic voices. We are particularly interested in understanding how these objectives have been pursued through both public and uncredited roles, disseminated through varied and unconventional outputs (such as exhibitions, anthologies, autobiographical publications, personal journals, etc.). Contributions explore individual or collective initiatives, and the subversive use of sources (oral histories, archives) to revolt against established norms and narratives. Ultimately, we seek examples that demonstrate the possibility of “seeing” as a critical project, able to guide us through the redefinition of what it means “architecture” today.
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Citations
Groaz, S., Felicori, B., & Lampariello, B. (2025). We Have Looked for 4,000 Years; Now We Have Seen! We Have Looked for 4,000 Years; Now We Have Seen!, Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) - SAH Women in Architecture Affiliate Group. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/243909