session chair with Ass. Prof. Petra Brouwer (Amsterdam). European Architectural History Network Fifth International Meeting, hosted by Estonian Academy of Arts, 14th June 2018, National Library of Estonia, Tallinn

The nineteenth-century architectural history of what Philippa Mein Smith (among others) has called the ‘Tasman world’ has long been shaped by the nationalist historiographies of twentieth-century Australia and New Zealand. Developments in the region’s colonial architecture from the 1780s onwards have thus fed later narratives of national foundations. The call for this session invited scholars to work against the grain of that problematic nationalism by addressing the architecture and infrastructure of those colonial industries operating across the early colonies of New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land and New Zealand, and connecting that ‘world’ to the economies of the British Empire, the ‘Anglosphere’, and architectural geographies defined by trade. These papers thus return to the colonial era of the South Pacific informed by the gains of post-colonial history, four-nations British historiography, studies of global colonial networks and systems, and an appreciation for ‘minor’ forms of historical evidence and architectural practice. Armed thus, the papers in this session consider the architecture of the Tasman world from the 1780s to the 1840s in its historical circumstances, exploring architecture across three different registers: intentioned works definitively cast as Architecture; the ‘grey’ architecture (after Bremner) of industries, transhipping and colonial infrastructure; and as an analogy for the relationships, systems and structures of the colonial project and its economic underpinnings. Papers move around and across the Tasman Sea. Philippa Mein Smith begins the session by exploring how the concept of the Tasman World and trans-colonial historiography activates the industrial architecture of sealing. Stuart King then homes in on the timber industry of Van Diemen’s Land and its import for a geography spanning from the Swan River Colony to California. Harriet Edquist considers the role of the Vandemonian Henty brothers in the settlement of Western Victoria, tempering a celebration of their pastoralism by recalling the displacements and disruptions wrought by their arrival. Bill Taylor attends to the informal ‘industry’ of pilfering and looks through the lens it offers on the Australian ports and their relationships with Britain. In the final paper, Robin Skinner pursues the matter of representation in his treatment of Burford’s dioramas of the three colonial ‘capitals’ of this period. Together, the papers in this session contribute to a postnationalist architectural history of the Tasman colonies that figures the place of this region in the nineteenth-century British world and beyond. Abstracts on pp 77-81 of the published programme.

presented at the 9th AISU CONGRESS "The global city / La città globale" within the D2 panel "News from nordic countries or an epoch of action" . 11st -14th September Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna Dipartimento di Architettura (ITALY) http://www.storiaurbana.org/images/Bologna2019/programma/aisu_programma_21x21.pdf

The end of the nineteen century -besides many transformations- saw the birth of what we call today mass media, with its modern way of communicating ideas and all the sudden changes of society. Magazines, and especially those ones interested in arts and architecture, played a central role in this revolution. Since the beginning, the Italian journals wanted to publish foreign artists, in order to favour the constitution of a truly “modern” conscience, and finally go beyond an Italian tradition, still bounded to classicism and eclectism. One of the main reason for its cultural lag was related to the absence –central in other European countries- of a tradition such as the Grand Tour, that, from the late Renaissance, permitted to each generation to travel and compare ideas, lifestyle, artistic believes. If we speak of these last two centuries, the main influences in Italian culture came from countries like Germany, Austria and France, first for their physical connections with Italy. However, as soon as the modern transportation and communications permit it, Italian magazines tried to keep up with the many artistic revolutions that where starting all over Europe, like in the Nordic countries. This essay focuses on a period between 1895 and 1950. The 1895 is the birth of the first modern art magazine: «Emporium», in Bergamo (Milan). On the other end, in 1950 Bruno Zevi publishes the first Italian History of Architecture , which presented Frank Lloyd Wright and Alvar Aalto as two great masters for the new generations. Between these two moments, there are the Fascist decades, with his economical but also cultural autarchia , which apparently wanted to contain this growing interest for foreign architecture. Actually, as we can see from a selected bibliography, most of the publications connected to Nordic architecture, comes from that period, especially after the 1928 and the birth of a famous architectural Italian journal: «Casabella». For these reasons, in order to understand the path of dissemination of Nordic architecture in Italy is crucial to follow the flow of publications on this topic in our architectural magazines.

Access to safe food in the aftermath of a disaster is pivotal to ensure the survival and well-being of victims and rescuers. This study investigates food management in the case of the earthquakes of 24 August 2016 in Central Italy, assessing survivors’ ability to access food (food security) and the field kitchens practices to ensure hygiene and avoid food-borne disease outbreak (food safety). The study was carried out administering questionnaires one month after the events, to field kitchens users (population hit by the earthquake and volunteer workers) and operatives. Five field kitchens located in the municipalities of Accumoli and Amatrice, in the Lazio Region, and in the municipality of Arquata del Tronto in the Marche Region, were examined. Results suggest that the food quantity, quality and the waiting time at the dining area were overall satisfactory. Almost all interviewed population and volunteer workers declared easy access to proper and abundant meals. Field kitchens operatives claimed both access to fresh ingredients, in quantities far exceeding the needs of the served communities, and availability of the necessary resources (technical and human) to guarantee controlled and safe conditions during preparation and distribution of food. The results of this study are synthesized in a model describing the various aspects that need to be address in order to properly manage food services during a disaster.

Borders have become one of the most controversial topics of our times. Identifiable borders, be they physical barriers, markings or the physical delimiters of socially constructed entities, are essential to how we designate living spaces, land allocations, territorial ownership and jurisdiction and, in a more abstract sense, how we analyze and study natural and social realities as such. Throughout the war in Syria during the past few years we have seen a mass migration within and out of Syria in search of safety. Some of the internally displaced persons (IDP) sought refuge along the border with Israel, Syria’s seven-decade-long mortal enemy. This choice might seem odd in light of the fact that these refugees show no intention of crossing the border into Israeli controlled areas. The article focuses on the “border area” as a space in itself, an unplanned, independent locus that because of unanticipated, anomalous circumstances became a haven from danger for Syrian refugees. These “internal refugees” effectively exploited the proximity of Israeli military forces to shield and protect themselves from their current feared assailants. Syrian IDP flee to areas where personal safety and protection were considered inconceivable in the past. The ebb and flow of refugees along the border area results in growing and shrinking of these settlements giving them an ever present dynamism, a three dimensional barometer indicating the level of safety that the residents have. The border areas adapted by Syrian displaced persons to their need for safe refuge are products of the interaction between desperate but resourceful people and the reality of displacement, insecurity and lack of shelter. The habitable spaces they created derive their distinctive character not from recognized theories of planning or regulatory oversight, but from the logic, ingenuity and inspiration of the mother of invention: necessity or, in more prosaic terms, from the exigencies of “informal planning.”