Dossier on Material Constraints in Architectural History

The example of construction shows very directly how people interact with their physical environment. However, the social sciences and humanities have difficulties in grasping this interaction conceptually. A group of IRS researchers has now presented an approach that places building materials at the centre of research into the history of construction and architecture.

When it comes to the interactions between human action and the physical world, the social sciences and humanities use terms such as agency and materiality. However, these can sometimes remain somewhat vague. As an alternative, researchers have proposed to look at specific materials. This is where the research group "History of the Built Environment" comes in with its work on material constraints. Monika Motylińska, María Ignacia Jeldes Olivares and Paul Sprute, together with Robby Fivez from the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, have developed a special topic for an issue of the renowned architectural history journal "ABE: Architecture Beyond Europe".

The special issue examines how different building materials impose specific and tangible conditions on the process of construction. This dossier invites readers to reconsider the formative role of materials in architectural history and also to recognise the constraints that have influenced building practices in the past and continue to do so today.

The contributions show how the interplay between material constraints and human agency has shaped architectural practices, influenced socio-political contexts, and enabled innovation in the long twentieth century. Thus, this issue not only sheds light on the physical aspects of building materials, but also incorporates their social dimensions and broader geopolitical context into the analysis. One focus is on the productive moment that arises from the interplay between material constraints and human agency. Across the 19th and 20th centuries and different world regions, this issue combines discussions from the history of architecture, building history, social anthropology, science and technology studies, and the history of materialities. The dossier thus demonstrates the contribution of interdisciplinary approaches to a comprehensive understanding of architectural processes.

The thematic issue includes contributions from Gauri Bharat and Bhavya Jain on the development of knowledge about concrete construction methods in colonial South Asia and from Ewan Harrison, Rixt Woudstra and Iain Jackson on prefabricated so-called Arcon steel systems in decolonising West Africa. Ksenia Litvinenko, an associate architectural historian at the IRS who will be working at the IRS for two years from 1 December 2024 as part of a grant from the Walter Benjamin Programme, is working on an article about Soviet historiography on the ger, the Mongolian yurt. Juliane Richter, an architectural historian and fellow associate at the IRS, and her co-author Alfonso Alfonso González are investigating East German-Cuban collaborations in the production of clay and earth cement in Havana. The issue concludes with an article by Monika Motylińska and Robby Fivez on narratives of cement shortages in sub-Saharan Africa and strategies for overcoming them.