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SAH Archipedia Highlights: Native American Heritage Month
Oct 31, 2023
by
SAH News
In celebration of Native American Heritage Month and the formation of the SAH Indigenous Architecture Affiliate Group, below is a selection of SAH Archipedia content highlighting the contributions of Native American architects. Additionally, a thematic essay on Gulf Coast Tribes explores the building activities of the Calusa, the Apalachee, the Chitimacha, and the Karankawa along a shared body of water. This essay was written by the 2017 Charles E. Peterson Fellow, Willa Granger. Applications for the 2024 Peterson Fellowship are currently open to graduate students until December 31, 2023.
National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution
Photograph by Carol Highsmith
The siting of the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall is significant, particularly the building's confrontational engagement with the Capitol building, a form of acknowledgment and contempt for federally supported genocides of Native peoples throughout the nation's history. Prior to the design of the structure, the Museum engaged in a three-year dialogue with Native communities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico to develop a guiding document, "The Way of the People," which shaped the design of the building. One of the most important goals was to highlight that Native communities were not restricted to their anthropological pasts, but instead were alive and active. The museum hired a collaborative group of Native American architects—Douglas Cardinal (Blackfoot), Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee/Choctaw), Donna House (Dine/Oneida), and Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi)—to design a building that contrasted neighboring cultural institutions. Most obviously, the building does not follow the modernist and classical forms of the other Smithsonian museums. Even in orientation, the National Museum of the American Indian incorporates Native customs by facing east toward the rising sun. Architecturally, the building’s distinctive curvilinear form evokes a wind-sculpted rock formation not unlike those of the Medicine Rocks in Montana. The five-story structure is clad in golden-toned Kasota stone, a dolomitic limestone from Minnesota. READ MORE
Bosque Redondo Memorial
Courtesy of the Friends of the Bosque Redondo Memorial
The Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument commemorates the site where thousands of Mescalero Apache and Navajo people were imprisoned between 1862 and 1868. The journey to Bosque Redondo, now known as “The Long Walk,” and the subsequent hardships internment imposed were devastating. Of the 11,000 Navajo (Diné) who departed for Bosque Redondo beginning in 1864, only 6,800 returned in 1868. Bosque Redondo translates from the Spanish as “circular grove of trees.” This inspired architects David Sloan (Diné) and Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee-Choctaw) to design the memorial as a ring of cottonwoods with a visitor center wedged into its northwest side. The arrangement of the trees includes two openings with sightlines toward the Mescalero and Diné homelands. The restoration of the Pecos River watershed along the western edge of the circle offers an exemplary site for teaching the importance of conserving the land. READ MORE
Four Winds High School
Photograph by Steve C. Martens
Working closely with the tribal council, Native American architects from three tribal nations collaborated on the design of this school in Fort Totten, North Dakota. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) design review committee, comprised mainly of Euro-Americans, was reluctant to accept a circular building because of concerns for the cost of such an unorthodox geometric configuration. The local tribal council and Native American architects for the building regarded the unifying tradition of the circle and practical space planning as compatible goals. As constructed, the plan is circular, except for a rectangular extension that contains the gymnasium. Corridors lead from entrances at the four cardinal points to the central space where there is a symbolic eagle enclosure that controls light and sound. In the interest of energy conservation, the school’s exterior has no windows, but desirable daylight is admitted through skylights, and the walls are bermed into the site. Surrounded by Enemy designed vertical concrete signposts at each entrance that are ornamented by abstract representations of an animal or natural spirit (buffalo, bird, elk, and thunder) associated with the cardinal directions. An overall design objective was to increase consciousness and pride in cultural traditions among students attending the school. READ MORE
Gulf Coast Tribes
Mound K, Crystal River Archaeological State Park, Florida. Photograph by Steven Martin
Scholars often subdivide the study of Native American culture into vast, multistate regions, including the Northeast, the Plains, and the Southwest, to name a few. The Southeast represents a zone bounded by present-day Texas, Missouri, Georgia, and Florida. This swath is expansive, and covers multiple environmental geographies: from the tropical tip of the Florida Keys to the Ozark Highlands. A quick survey of Native American building typologies from this region is equally expansive, and includes the famous earthen mounds of Cahokia in Illinois as well as the post-and-lintel chickee huts of the Seminoles in Florida. Honing this scope even further, however, we can examine a series of tribes with a major geographic commonality: the Gulf Coast. Many tribes settled along this slow arch of coastline, inhabiting land that today stretches from Florida to Texas; a selection of these groups, moving east to west, included the Calusa, the Apalachee, the Chitimacha, and the Karankawa. READ MORE
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At the center of SAH Celebrates is the Charnley-Persky House (1891–1892), a National Historic Landmark and a Chicago Landmark designed by Louis Sullivan with assistance from Frank Lloyd Wright, that serves as SAH headquarters. SAH Celebrates highlights the importance of fostering a supportive community whose efforts ensure the stewardship of architectural gems like the Charnley-Persky House.
Proceeds benefit the ongoing maintenance and care of the Charnley-Persky House and SAH's educational programs and publications, including SAH Archipedia and Buildings of the United States.
T. Gunny Harboe, FAIA
Founder, Harboe Architects
Michelangelo Sabatino, PhD
Professor, Director of Ph.D. Program in Architecture, Inaugural John Vinci Distinguished Research Fellow, Illinois Institute of Technology
Founder, Harboe Architects
Michelangelo Sabatino, PhD
Professor, Director of Ph.D. Program in Architecture, Inaugural John Vinci Distinguished Research Fellow, Illinois Institute of Technology
Laurence O. Booth, FAIA
Booth Hansen Architects
Rebekah Coffman
Chicago History Museum
Stuart Cohen, FAIA
Cohen-Hacker Architects
Thomas M. Dietz
Alison Fisher
Art Institute of Chicago
Scott Fortman
Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, Chicago-Midwest Chapter
Keith Goad
The Keith Goad Group, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Chicago
Chandra Goldsmith
IIT CoA Board of Advisors
Barbara Gordon
Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy
Eleanor Gorski
Chicago Architecture Center
Stuart Graff
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
Julie Hacker, FAIA
Cohen-Hacker Architects
Sarah Herda
Graham Foundation
Harry Hunderman, FAIA
Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc
Lisa Key
Driehaus Museum
Nancy and Thomas Klein
SAH Chicago Chapter
Thomas Leslie
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jen Masengarb
AIA Chicago
Bonnie McDonald
Landmarks Illinois
Justin Miller
Docomomo US/Chicago
Ward Miller
Preservation Chicago
Heather Hyde Minor
University of Notre Dame
Keith N. Morgan, FSAH
SAH Past President
Sarah Rogers Morris
University of Illinois at Chicago
John K. Notz Jr.
SAH Benefactor Member
Keith Olsen
Olsen Vranas Architects
Abby Persky
Chicago, IL
Laurie Petersen
Charnley-Persky House Board Member
Charlie Pipal
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Deborah Slaton
Wiss, Janney, Elstner Assocites, Inc.
Cynthia Vranas
Mies Van der Rohe Society
Cynthia Weese, FAIA
Weese, Langley, Weese Architects and Charnley-Persky House Board Member
Ernie Wong
Commission on Chicago Landmarks
Booth Hansen Architects
Rebekah Coffman
Chicago History Museum
Stuart Cohen, FAIA
Cohen-Hacker Architects
Thomas M. Dietz
Jaeger Nickola Kuhlman & Associates
Art Institute of Chicago
Scott Fortman
Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, Chicago-Midwest Chapter
Keith Goad
The Keith Goad Group, Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Chicago
Chandra Goldsmith
IIT CoA Board of Advisors
Barbara Gordon
Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy
Eleanor Gorski
Chicago Architecture Center
Stuart Graff
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
Julie Hacker, FAIA
Cohen-Hacker Architects
Sarah Herda
Graham Foundation
Harry Hunderman, FAIA
Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc
Lisa Key
Driehaus Museum
Nancy and Thomas Klein
SAH Chicago Chapter
Thomas Leslie
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Jen Masengarb
AIA Chicago
Bonnie McDonald
Landmarks Illinois
Justin Miller
Docomomo US/Chicago
Ward Miller
Preservation Chicago
Heather Hyde Minor
University of Notre Dame
Keith N. Morgan, FSAH
SAH Past President
Sarah Rogers Morris
University of Illinois at Chicago
John K. Notz Jr.
SAH Benefactor Member
Keith Olsen
Olsen Vranas Architects
Abby Persky
Chicago, IL
Laurie Petersen
Charnley-Persky House Board Member
Charlie Pipal
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Deborah Slaton
Wiss, Janney, Elstner Assocites, Inc.
Chris-Annmarie Spencer, AIA, NOMA
AIA Chicago Foundation
Cynthia Vranas
Mies Van der Rohe Society
Cynthia Weese, FAIA
Weese, Langley, Weese Architects and Charnley-Persky House Board Member
Ernie Wong
Commission on Chicago Landmarks
Download the prospectus for information about sponsorship and advertising opportunities. Please contact Ben Thomas at 312-573-1365 if you have questions.
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Whither Criticism?
A webinar series featuring six acclaimed critics discussing the current state of architectural criticism, and criticism's role in addressing the major crises of our time.
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Visiting Faculty Fellowships in Design for Spatial Justice - University of Oregon
The University of Oregon in Eugene and Portland, Oregon invites applications for Visiting Faculty Fellowships in Design for Spatial Justice at the rank of assistant, associate, full, or professor of practice in the areas of architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture and historic preservation in the School of Architecture & Environment in the College of Design. The School of Architecture & Environment will award up to six faculty fellowships in design/research and teaching for durations of two terms to three years, to start as early as September 2021. Each fellow will be expected to teach one or two courses per quarter (five courses per year) and to contribute to scholarship and public programming.
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Call for Bibliographic References to Expand "Women in Architecture Bibliography"
The SAH Women in ArchitectureAffiliate Group and SAH WiA AG Registers Committee invite submissions of bibliographic references, new or absent in the initial edition of the SAH Women in Architecture Bibliography. Contributors will be recognized in Acknowledgements. We invite references to expand: – The list of BOOKS authored/edited BY WOMEN, who are architectural and art historians, educators, curators, critics, other protagonists in our profession. – The list of BOOKS ABOUT WOMEN’s CONTRIBUTION to the built environment integrating works in broader diversity, border- and cross-disciplinary studies, covering various geographies, and areas relevant to understanding and teaching the subject. – The list of THESES ABOUT WOMEN’s CONTRIBUTION to the discipline. – The list of BOOKS/THESES, following the same logistics, published in languages other than English. NO DEADLINE! Subject Line: WiA Bibliography 2023; Format: Word doc. / Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition The SAH Women in Architecture Bibliography is a comprehensive project in-progress of the SAH Women in Architecture Affiliate Group, a groundbreaking effort to document and recognize the essential role women have played in the creation of the built environment, from practicing architects, urban, landscape, and interior designers, to artists and craftsmen, to the many scholars who have informed, advocated, and educated through their publications, exhibitions, and numerous public and private programs around women in architecture. While there have been bibliographies and collections developed on the topic, no effort has been made to organize a major inclusive database of books and theses about the contribution of women to the built environment. These efforts of the SAH Women in Architecture Affiliate Group have just launched, and the initial open e-access edition containing c. 1,100 titles has been published online in July and in August 2021. The Society of Architectural Historians and the SAH WiA AG are committed to creating the bibliography that will lead current and future generations of professionals to the core literature of inclusive, powerful writings by and about women in the integral field of architecture.
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SAH Archipedia Highlights: Native American Heritage Month
Oct 31, 2023
by
SAH News
In celebration of Native American Heritage Month and the formation of the SAH Indigenous Architecture Affiliate Group, below is a selection of SAH Archipedia content highlighting the contributions of Native American architects. Additionally, a thematic essay on Gulf Coast Tribes explores the building activities of the Calusa, the Apalachee, the Chitimacha, and the Karankawa along a shared body of water. This essay was written by the 2017 Charles E. Peterson Fellow, Willa Granger. Applications for the 2024 Peterson Fellowship are currently open to graduate students until December 31, 2023.
National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution
Photograph by Carol Highsmith
The siting of the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall is significant, particularly the building's confrontational engagement with the Capitol building, a form of acknowledgment and contempt for federally supported genocides of Native peoples throughout the nation's history. Prior to the design of the structure, the Museum engaged in a three-year dialogue with Native communities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico to develop a guiding document, "The Way of the People," which shaped the design of the building. One of the most important goals was to highlight that Native communities were not restricted to their anthropological pasts, but instead were alive and active. The museum hired a collaborative group of Native American architects—Douglas Cardinal (Blackfoot), Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee/Choctaw), Donna House (Dine/Oneida), and Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi)—to design a building that contrasted neighboring cultural institutions. Most obviously, the building does not follow the modernist and classical forms of the other Smithsonian museums. Even in orientation, the National Museum of the American Indian incorporates Native customs by facing east toward the rising sun. Architecturally, the building’s distinctive curvilinear form evokes a wind-sculpted rock formation not unlike those of the Medicine Rocks in Montana. The five-story structure is clad in golden-toned Kasota stone, a dolomitic limestone from Minnesota. READ MORE
Bosque Redondo Memorial
Courtesy of the Friends of the Bosque Redondo Memorial
The Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument commemorates the site where thousands of Mescalero Apache and Navajo people were imprisoned between 1862 and 1868. The journey to Bosque Redondo, now known as “The Long Walk,” and the subsequent hardships internment imposed were devastating. Of the 11,000 Navajo (Diné) who departed for Bosque Redondo beginning in 1864, only 6,800 returned in 1868. Bosque Redondo translates from the Spanish as “circular grove of trees.” This inspired architects David Sloan (Diné) and Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee-Choctaw) to design the memorial as a ring of cottonwoods with a visitor center wedged into its northwest side. The arrangement of the trees includes two openings with sightlines toward the Mescalero and Diné homelands. The restoration of the Pecos River watershed along the western edge of the circle offers an exemplary site for teaching the importance of conserving the land. READ MORE
Four Winds High School
Photograph by Steve C. Martens
Working closely with the tribal council, Native American architects from three tribal nations collaborated on the design of this school in Fort Totten, North Dakota. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) design review committee, comprised mainly of Euro-Americans, was reluctant to accept a circular building because of concerns for the cost of such an unorthodox geometric configuration. The local tribal council and Native American architects for the building regarded the unifying tradition of the circle and practical space planning as compatible goals. As constructed, the plan is circular, except for a rectangular extension that contains the gymnasium. Corridors lead from entrances at the four cardinal points to the central space where there is a symbolic eagle enclosure that controls light and sound. In the interest of energy conservation, the school’s exterior has no windows, but desirable daylight is admitted through skylights, and the walls are bermed into the site. Surrounded by Enemy designed vertical concrete signposts at each entrance that are ornamented by abstract representations of an animal or natural spirit (buffalo, bird, elk, and thunder) associated with the cardinal directions. An overall design objective was to increase consciousness and pride in cultural traditions among students attending the school. READ MORE
Gulf Coast Tribes
Mound K, Crystal River Archaeological State Park, Florida. Photograph by Steven Martin
Scholars often subdivide the study of Native American culture into vast, multistate regions, including the Northeast, the Plains, and the Southwest, to name a few. The Southeast represents a zone bounded by present-day Texas, Missouri, Georgia, and Florida. This swath is expansive, and covers multiple environmental geographies: from the tropical tip of the Florida Keys to the Ozark Highlands. A quick survey of Native American building typologies from this region is equally expansive, and includes the famous earthen mounds of Cahokia in Illinois as well as the post-and-lintel chickee huts of the Seminoles in Florida. Honing this scope even further, however, we can examine a series of tribes with a major geographic commonality: the Gulf Coast. Many tribes settled along this slow arch of coastline, inhabiting land that today stretches from Florida to Texas; a selection of these groups, moving east to west, included the Calusa, the Apalachee, the Chitimacha, and the Karankawa. READ MORE
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SAH Archipedia Highlights: Native American Heritage Month
Oct 31, 2023
by
SAH News
In celebration of Native American Heritage Month and the formation of the SAH Indigenous Architecture Affiliate Group, below is a selection of SAH Archipedia content highlighting the contributions of Native American architects. Additionally, a thematic essay on Gulf Coast Tribes explores the building activities of the Calusa, the Apalachee, the Chitimacha, and the Karankawa along a shared body of water. This essay was written by the 2017 Charles E. Peterson Fellow, Willa Granger. Applications for the 2024 Peterson Fellowship are currently open to graduate students until December 31, 2023.
National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution
Photograph by Carol Highsmith
The siting of the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall is significant, particularly the building's confrontational engagement with the Capitol building, a form of acknowledgment and contempt for federally supported genocides of Native peoples throughout the nation's history. Prior to the design of the structure, the Museum engaged in a three-year dialogue with Native communities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico to develop a guiding document, "The Way of the People," which shaped the design of the building. One of the most important goals was to highlight that Native communities were not restricted to their anthropological pasts, but instead were alive and active. The museum hired a collaborative group of Native American architects—Douglas Cardinal (Blackfoot), Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee/Choctaw), Donna House (Dine/Oneida), and Ramona Sakiestewa (Hopi)—to design a building that contrasted neighboring cultural institutions. Most obviously, the building does not follow the modernist and classical forms of the other Smithsonian museums. Even in orientation, the National Museum of the American Indian incorporates Native customs by facing east toward the rising sun. Architecturally, the building’s distinctive curvilinear form evokes a wind-sculpted rock formation not unlike those of the Medicine Rocks in Montana. The five-story structure is clad in golden-toned Kasota stone, a dolomitic limestone from Minnesota. READ MORE
Bosque Redondo Memorial
Courtesy of the Friends of the Bosque Redondo Memorial
The Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument commemorates the site where thousands of Mescalero Apache and Navajo people were imprisoned between 1862 and 1868. The journey to Bosque Redondo, now known as “The Long Walk,” and the subsequent hardships internment imposed were devastating. Of the 11,000 Navajo (Diné) who departed for Bosque Redondo beginning in 1864, only 6,800 returned in 1868. Bosque Redondo translates from the Spanish as “circular grove of trees.” This inspired architects David Sloan (Diné) and Johnpaul Jones (Cherokee-Choctaw) to design the memorial as a ring of cottonwoods with a visitor center wedged into its northwest side. The arrangement of the trees includes two openings with sightlines toward the Mescalero and Diné homelands. The restoration of the Pecos River watershed along the western edge of the circle offers an exemplary site for teaching the importance of conserving the land. READ MORE
Four Winds High School
Photograph by Steve C. Martens
Working closely with the tribal council, Native American architects from three tribal nations collaborated on the design of this school in Fort Totten, North Dakota. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) design review committee, comprised mainly of Euro-Americans, was reluctant to accept a circular building because of concerns for the cost of such an unorthodox geometric configuration. The local tribal council and Native American architects for the building regarded the unifying tradition of the circle and practical space planning as compatible goals. As constructed, the plan is circular, except for a rectangular extension that contains the gymnasium. Corridors lead from entrances at the four cardinal points to the central space where there is a symbolic eagle enclosure that controls light and sound. In the interest of energy conservation, the school’s exterior has no windows, but desirable daylight is admitted through skylights, and the walls are bermed into the site. Surrounded by Enemy designed vertical concrete signposts at each entrance that are ornamented by abstract representations of an animal or natural spirit (buffalo, bird, elk, and thunder) associated with the cardinal directions. An overall design objective was to increase consciousness and pride in cultural traditions among students attending the school. READ MORE
Gulf Coast Tribes
Mound K, Crystal River Archaeological State Park, Florida. Photograph by Steven Martin
Scholars often subdivide the study of Native American culture into vast, multistate regions, including the Northeast, the Plains, and the Southwest, to name a few. The Southeast represents a zone bounded by present-day Texas, Missouri, Georgia, and Florida. This swath is expansive, and covers multiple environmental geographies: from the tropical tip of the Florida Keys to the Ozark Highlands. A quick survey of Native American building typologies from this region is equally expansive, and includes the famous earthen mounds of Cahokia in Illinois as well as the post-and-lintel chickee huts of the Seminoles in Florida. Honing this scope even further, however, we can examine a series of tribes with a major geographic commonality: the Gulf Coast. Many tribes settled along this slow arch of coastline, inhabiting land that today stretches from Florida to Texas; a selection of these groups, moving east to west, included the Calusa, the Apalachee, the Chitimacha, and the Karankawa. READ MORE
