Vernacular Architecture Forum Conference

Join the Vernacular Architecture Forum in Michigan's UP for our annual conference. This year we'll be exploring Michigan's Copper Country, with two days of tours and a day of paper sessions, culminating in our annual banquet and preview of the 2025 conference.

Date: Jun 12, 2024 - Jun 15, 2024

Location:

Keweenaw , United States

VAF 2024 Conference

June 12-15, 2024

Keweenaw Peninsula and Houghton, Michigan

In June 2024, join VAF members as they venture “North of the Northwoods” to Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. Known as the “Copper Country,” this three-county area on the southern shore of Lake Superior features buildings and landscapes that tell stories of copper mining boom and bust, immigration, urban growth, industrial labor, as well as post-industrial patterns of recovery, reinvention, and re-interpretation. The region is home to the Keweenaw National Historical Park and Michigan Technological University, whose program in Industrial Heritage and Archaeology has been studying the region’s built environment for over thirty years. Historic buildings featured on the tours date from the 1850s prospecting era, through the height of industrialization when the region supported sizable cities, to the rise of tourism with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and post-War automobile travel. Issues of environmental and cultural sustainability will feature prominently as we visit Finnish-American farmstead sites, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community landscapes, post-industrial downtowns, and Superfund remediation sites. Check out this special travel page made exclusively for VAF visitors by Visit Keweenaw here.

Conference attendees will stay in Houghton, Michigan on the beautiful Portage Waterway and attend paper sessions at Michigan Technological University. Everyone will do the same tour on Thursday to explore the story of copper mining, and then choose between two tour options on Friday. Tour attendees will all enjoy time on Lake Superior’s shores.