1What are the purposes of architectural history and how do they relate to ABE’s mission to look beyond the architecture of Europe and of English-speaking former settler colonies? There are two popular understandings of architectural history. One is strongly rooted in architectural education. The other is gaining ground in city marketing and other tourism initiatives that challenge the primacy of mainstream scholarship in the field. Changes in the way information is disseminated and academic publications are marketed also contribute to the marginalization of such scholarship — precisely when it is increasingly addressing issues of social relevance, including exploring the architecture of the rest of the world in increased detail.

2The papers presented at the conferences and the articles published and books reviewed by the journals of the major internationally-facing professional organizations in the field, such as the European Architectural History Network (EAHN), the International Association for the Study of the Traditional Environment (IASTE), and the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH), as well as the prizes they award and the keynote speakers they select, may all be taken to represent the current state of scholarship in the field, along, of course, with articles published in ABE. This is now in many ways impressively diverse. Women are well represented in all of these situations, as is feminist scholarship. Scholars of color are far more common in the United States, but elsewhere there is also lively interest in the architecture of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, although not often in Oceania. Vernacular architecture has now been the subject of decades of serious study. The focus has long shifted away from the single male genius as the sole creator of buildings that matter, wherever in the world they may be.

3These changes, however, are not often reflected in the ways that most university students, particularly those in architecture schools, are introduced to the field. In what is often their only experience of the subject, survey courses instead often focus on aesthetic education. Survey texts are now often global in scope, but whether they start in prehistoric times or the late nineteenth century, they often confirm an outmoded view that architecture is largely a question of form, style, theory, and possibly structure. The relation of architecture to power or the social use of space, issues that have engaged scholars for two generations, is largely ignored. Buildings are selected and chosen for the degree to which they serve as models for good design going forward. The dissemination of new ideas is generally credited to the travels of European men, and the scholarship of women and people of color is almost never cited. The impact of feminists and post-colonialism is negligible; issues of sustainability are also unlikely to be addressed. For most architecture students, their experience of these classes confirms what they may also be learning in studio, which is that a small coterie of European, North American, and Japanese men, joined perhaps by David Adjaye, Eileen Gray, Zaha Hadid, and Kazuyo Sejima, are responsible for the only buildings that deserve their attention. The role of patronage, let alone construction labor, is seldom mentioned, although planning regulations may be addressed, and technological change certainly is. The association of the modern movement with progressive politics is likely to be greatly exaggerated if politics are mentioned at all.

4Meanwhile, the rest of the public increasingly accesses information about architecture, and particularly about historic architecture — a topic that now includes most buildings erected in the twentieth century — , through the Internet. In many cases, particularly when the public interest is spurred by travel, this information is mediated by public relations firms committed to increasing tourism. Information is thus curated to provide the most attractive story. Historic accuracy is often elided in such situations, especially as regards the authenticity of what is on view. Storytelling often trumps analysis, although uncomfortable truths about connections to slavery and colonialism are beginning to be explored, and labor history is often celebrated when it can enhance a site’s appeal.

5The problem of how the public encounters architectural history is exacerbated by a third development, related to how we access information. While journal articles are now more easily available to university students through data bases such JSTOR, most people begin their quest for information with a search engine rather than in a library catalogue or at a bookstore. Even open-access journals like ABE that have no paywall are seldom what a member of the general public is likely to first encounter. Initiatives like SAH’s Sahara database, which includes buildings from across the United States, are an important first step in the right direction, but they do not consistently lead readers on to more nuanced scholarship. Platform is a second crucial initiative, offering peer-reviewed blog-length “sound bites” on an open access platform, while also indicating where to go for more detailed accounts.

6Meanwhile, the market for scholarly books in the field has plummeted for two very different reasons. First, students now read everything they are assigned online. Forty years ago, I spent $1000 an academic year on books, many of which I still own; this represented half of my discretionary expenses across the year. Widely assigned books, many of which were not textbooks, were easily available in museum as well as university bookstores, which now generally focus on profit margins rather than building an audience of engaged readers. Architectural historians who once hoped to sell thousands, and in some cases tens of thousands, of copies of their work now find that publishers are printing editions of only several hundred, most of which are being sold to university libraries, with only a handful of titles a year making it onto the shelves of even the few bookstores that specialize in architecture. Anyone who does not attend the book fairs at professional meetings and is not on the mailing list of the major presses is likely to remain entirely unaware of new developments in the field, as these books are almost never reviewed anywhere but in specialist journals, and even these often overlook major titles.

7The challenge these developments pose is enormous. We live in an information age, in which the explosion of access is widely trumpeted. At the same time, we are increasingly aware of the damaging effects upon politics and public health of so-called fake news. The situation of architectural history is far less extreme than that of correctly reported election results and widespread acceptance of life-saving vaccines. Nonetheless, we must be aware of the degree to which welcome developments in the field often now remain within our own social media bubbles. As academics, we must strive harder to transform the way in which architectural history is taught at survey level; as informed citizens, we must engage our communities to ensure that heritage is not simply monetized but appreciated for all of the reasons that compelled us to build careers in this field.

8Progress will not be easy, but unfortunately we cannot content ourselves that we are having the requisite impact merely by producing ground-breaking inclusive scholarship.