The Society of Architectural Historians will host its 73rd Annual International Conference in Seattle, Washington, April 29–May 3, 2020. SAH members from around the world will convene to present new research on the history of the built environment and explore the architecture of Seattle and nearby areas. The conference will include 36 paper sessions, roundtables and workshops, architecture and landscape tours, networking receptions, and more.
Scholar, curator and designer Mabel O. Wilson will deliver the 2020 Eduard F. Sekler Talk at this year's SAH Conference.
Titled “‘The Home of the Oppressed’: Democracy, Slavery and America’s Civic Architecture,” the talk will explore how the United States’ early civic sphere formed within a landscape of chattel slavery whose laborers built and maintained the architectures of democracy. It is critical to consider that enslaved black people, humans classified as property who lacked the proper political subjectivity to be literally (and legally) self-possessed, built several of the nation’s important civic buildings—the Virginia Capitol, the White House, and the US Capitol. These edifices stand today as Enlightenment monuments to the power of reason and the virtues of equality, justice, and freedom.
The Sekler Talk will take place on Thursday, April 30, at Town Hall Seattle from 8:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Registration for the Sekler Talk is free and will open to the public on March 4, 2020.
Registration, session details, and more information is available on the SAH website.