N° 27 | On the Profession of Historian.Transforming practices and horizons
Deadline for sending papers: 9 Februar 2026
Plan
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- 1 British architectural historian Anthony Vidler (1941–2023) also passed away that year.
At the end of 2023, the sudden and premature death of architect and historian Jean-Louis Cohen (1949-2023), followed a few weeks later by that of Jacques Lucan (1947-2023), stunned the architectural world1. That same year, protests erupted throughout France’s national schools of architecture (ENSA), the largest since May 1968. The movement “ENSA en lutte” called architectural education into question, demanding reform. As with other aspiring professionals, such as engineer students, architecture students wanted teaching that reflected contemporary changes. Architectural history was no exception to this, with calls for a major overhaul paying particular attention to issues such as gender, the environmental crisis and decolonization. Today, this context has prompted an examination of the profession of architectural historians, whose primary role is to distance themselves from events and reflect critically upon them. How has this profession been shaped in recent decades? What can architectural historians contribute to the ongoing vicissitudes of our times? An assessment is hereby in store.
- 2 Simona Talenti, L’Histoire de l’architecture en France : émergence d’une discipline, 1863-1914, Par (...)
- 3 “L’Histoire : approches et connexion,” Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale et urbaine, n° 26 (...)
- 4 Werner Szambien, “Où va l’histoire de l’architecture?,” Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale (...)
- 5 Françoise Hamon and Werner Szambien, “Qui a peur de l’histoire de l’architecture?,” Histoire de l’a (...)
- 6 Barry Bergdoll and Alice Thomine, “Teaching Architectural History in France: A Shifting Institution (...)
Assuming that architectural historians lack recognition, the present issue seeks to refresh and put into perspective analyses carried out over the years, which generally overlook practical studies and portraits of the players involved. Although Simona Talenti focused on the discipline’s foundations in the 19th century,2 no equivalent overview exists for the following century, even if a number of assessments have helped to lay the groundwork. The Cahiers de la Recherche Architecturale has been at the heart of creating a renewed look at architectural history, with several issues surrounding the evolution of practices.3 As early as the 1990s, Werner Szambien (1953-2022) noted the recent developments in architectural history,4 before expressing concern about its fragmentation a few years later in the Revue de l’art.5 By the turn of the century, with the doctorate in architecture emerging in 2005 and encouraging research, numerous authors portrayed a field and a profession divided between various teaching and research institutions.6
- 7 Dana Arnold, Reading Architectural History, London, Routlegde, 2002.
- 8 Andrew Leach, What is Architectural History?, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2010.
- 9 See Jean-Louis Cohen, “Les Horizons nouveaux de l’histoire de l’architecture,” in Jean-Louis Cohen (...)
- 10 “L’architecte-Historien”, Livraisons Histoire de l’architecture, n°9, first semester, 2005.
- 11 “Le Projet d’histoire – Histoires de projet. Architectes/historiens dans l’après-guerre,” Internati (...)
- 12 Richard Klein (dir.), À quoi sert l’histoire de l’architecture aujourd’hui?, Paris, Hermann, 2018.
- 13 Arnaud Timbert, Être historien de l’architecture dans la France des xxe et xxie siècles : des ego-h (...)
- 14 Gauthier Bolle and Nina Mansion-Prud’homme, “Acteurs et dynamiques de l’histoire de l’architecture (...)
Internationally, works by Dana Arnold7 and Andrew Leach8 have analyzed the boundaries and purposes of architectural history, while Jean-Louis Cohen has made several attempts to outline contemporary trends.9 While such reviews draw up the historiographical landscape on a national or even international scale, individuals are not the focus. Nevertheless, some recent initiatives have opened the way to biographical analyses, such as the 2005 Livraisons Histoire de l’architecture,10 which outlined the profile of an “architect-historian.” More recently, this was updated at a symposium on “Architectes-Historiens dans l’Après-Guerre”.11 Additionally, Richard Klein’s 2018 book discusses professional trajectories and attitudes, questioning colleagues with a seemingly basic question: À quoi sert l’histoire de l’architecture aujourd’hui ?12 These views were further developed in Être historien de l’architecture dans la France des xxe et xxie13 siècles, a book featuring the ego-histories of various disciplinary players. Other local field investigations14 have also shed light on contexts in which research and teaching in architectural history have flourished.
- 15 Antonio Brucculeri, L’Architecture classique et l’approche historique de Louis Hautecoeur : sources (...)
- 16 Peter Draper, Reassessing Nikolaus Pevsner, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, p. 246; Susie Harries, Nikola (...)
- 17 Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie, Le Territoire de l’historien, Paris, Gallimard, 1973.
- 18 Antoine Prost, Douze leçons pour l’histoire, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1996.
- 19 François Bédarida, L’Histoire et le métier d’historien, Paris, Éditions des Sciences de l’Homme, 19 (...)
While architectural historians continue to be interviewed regularly, they are seldom studied, despite research on Louis Hautecoeur (1884-1973) and Auguste Choisy (1841-1909) paving the way for new approaches in France.15 Though certain actors, such as Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983) or Manfredo Tafuri (1935-1994), have been the target of biographical analyses,16 many others remain in the shadows. Finally, over the last decades, collected testimonies have emerged as a key source of documentation in the discipline’s recent history and thus deserve greater attention. This call for papers therefore aims to take a critical and documented look at the profession of historian, avoiding ego-histories and introspective narratives. Inspired by historiographical approaches carried out in the field of history, the goal is to transfer and expand these models within architectural history. Drawing on the work of Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie (1929-2023), our proposal invites an examination of new horizons for architectural historians,17 questioning more broadly the “profession of historian” 18and the “occupation of historian.”19 Taking his reference works as a point of departure, we call for a new historiographical and epistemological undertaking surrounding the profession of architectural historian.
Challenging Issues
The aim of this issue is to study the backgrounds and trajectories of architectural historians from the second half of the 20th century up to today, both in France and abroad. The aim is to expand upon numbers of intellectual biographies to gain greater insights into the discipline’s evolution through its many actors and contributing communities. Where and how has the position of architectural historian been constructed in a field often considered bicephalous, comprised of architects passionate about history and historians specialized in architecture? How has interdisciplinary dialogue enabled a transfer of practices?
What references are involved? As in all humanities, architectural history must rethink its boundaries to include women, non-Western territories and so-called marginal heritage. Thus, how are subjects, methods and actors in this field influenced by feminization and de-Westernization?
How is its narrative shaped? Does the discourse remain the same when addressing student architects, young art historians, heritage professionals or enthusiasts?
- 20 We refer here to the work directed by Jean-François Sirinelli and Yann Potin: Générations historien (...)
This issue invites us to explore the evolving horizons of historians from a variety of stances (professional, institutional, disciplinary, epistemological, geographical, etc.). It encourages an examination of actors, or even generations or lineages of historians,20 and a consideration of disciplinary limitations, debates and misunderstandings. Three main lines of inquiry are suggested, with proposals falling into one or more of the following areas.
1. In Practice: Locations, methods and contexts
The first line of questioning looks at the contexts in which historians learn and practice, coming from various backgrounds (architects, art historians, curators, scholars, etc.) and work environments (universities, schools of architecture, local authorities, institutes, research laboratories, etc.). Firstly, impact on practices may be measured by questioning these settings, along with actors’ mobility. Furthermore, a closer look at professional backgrounds may make it possible to identify the competition and complementarity at play within this complex field. Finally, evolving practices may also be considered. What is the historian’s role in increasingly interdisciplinary and collaborative research contexts: expertise, scientific justification or support? Another possibility is to examine the evolution of teaching practices, looking at the place given to architectural history in training processes and methods.
2. Sources, Corpus and Methods
The second area of thought focuses directly on practices themselves; that is, gathering sources, building a corpus and developing methods. This involves exploring which sources and references are sought, read and critiqued by architectural historians, and how they are used. How do historical subjects and issues interact with architectural theory and criticism, along with heritage demands and processes? In between operative history and the autonomy of history, how do historians consider the relationship between their discipline and that of architectural design? Is it utilitarian or disobedient? Where is the line between history and doctrine? Moreover, what does architectural history have to say about historians’ methods, such as new history, microhistory, global history or connected history? Another avenue to explore is that of exchanges and transfers from other disciplinary fields. For example, evidence of this kind of phenomenon can be seen in the rapid growth of reception theories over the past twenty years.
3. Narrative Issues and Forms: Expansion and decentralization
- 21 Ivan Jablonka, L’Histoire est une littérature contemporaine. Manifeste pour les sciences sociales, (...)
- 22 Marc Bloch, L’étrange Défaite, Paris, Éditions du Franc-Tireur, 1946, p. 2.
The final line of inquiry invites insights on developments in architectural history narratives over the last few decades. Ivan Jablonka posits that “history is contemporary literature.”21 This begs the question of creativity’s role in writing the history of architecture. “Without examining the present, it is impossible to understand the past,” 22said Marc Bloch (1886-1944). To what extent do architectural historians take into account the paradigm shift brought about by the environmental crisis, both in their research and in their teaching? What place are women granted, both as historians and in the study corpus? And what about the renewal of teaching, which has sparked genuine research interest, as evidenced by recent publications? How does the discipline intend to move away from euro-centrism and embrace decolonial thinking? In light of these emerging challenges, is the discipline and its associated practices undergoing radical change, or merely maintaining a status quo?
Expectations and Guidelines
Contributions dealing with individual actors, groups of historians, as well as intellectual biographies, genealogical narratives and prosopographical studies are especially welcome and eagerly anticipated. Intellectual heritage and the emergence of schools of thought linking these protagonists may also be explored, as well as the development of corporations and communities. Drawing on case studies, articles should highlight key lessons to be drawn from these portrayals, providing broader understanding of the discipline and its recent developments. Ego-historical contributions, introspective self-portraits and reflective reviews of individual practices will not be considered.
Proposals should rely primarily on unpublished and unexplored sources, whether archival, oral or printed. They should shed light on the current situation in France, or on the trajectories of historians in other national contexts, while also examining their international dimension.
The timeline suggested extends from the late 1960s to today. Considerations of methods, sources and critique apply to each of the proposed lines of investigation.
Procedure for the Transmission of Draft Articles
Proposals for completes articles should be sent by e-mail before 9 Februar 2026 to the Craup’ editorial office: craup.secretariat@gmail.com
For more information, contact Aude Clavel on 06 10 55 11 36 or by email
The journal expects completed articles, not proposals, abstracts or any other form of presentation.
The articles must not exceed 40 000 characters, including spaces.
Languages accepted: French, English.
Articles must be accompanied by:
− 1 biobibliographical record between 5 to 10 lines (name and first name of the author (s), professional status and / or titles, possible institutional link, research themes, latest publications, e-mail address).
− 2 abstracts in French and English.
− 5 key words in French and English.
− The title of the article must also be translated into French or English depending on the language of the paper.
Instructions to Authors
1 / General rules
Italics: Italicize words in foreign languages in relation to the language used. For example: op. cit., ibid., cf., a priori, a posteriori, etc.
No use of bold (with the exception of section titles) nor capitals (with the exception of proper names, institutions, book titles in English, etc.).
American conventions regarding punctuation are to be employed: double quotation marks, period before quotation marks, footnote at the very end of a sentence. For example: “This is how American people, as they say, ‘do it.’”
Authors may opt for British English or American spelling but the convention employed must be used in a consistent way. For example: formalised and formalized are both acceptable, as are color and colour.
Footnotes are to be used to cite sources instead of in-text citations.
Numbers: Up to ten, please spell out the number (for example, nine visitors), beyond ten, use numbers (for example: 100,000 inhabitants).
Dates: Centuries should be in numbers: 19th century. Form the plural of decades without an apostrophe. For example: the 1960s.
For persons who are deceased, add birth and death date in parenthesis. For example: Michel Foucault (1926-1984).
2 / Body of the text
The text must be entered in the Microsoft Word software, using Times New Roman, size 12, line spacing 1.5, without any special formatting, except titles, headings, captions and paragraph breaks.
3 / Quotations
Quotations of less than 3 lines will be inserted into the text and placed between quotation marks.
Quotes of more than 3 lines will be indented to the left and right, size 10 (not 12), and without quotation marks.
4 / Bibliographic References
Bibliographic references and references in footnotes are to be formatted according to the same model, although references in footnotes will include a page number.
Bibliographical references will also be grouped in alphabetical order (according to author names) and will appear at the end of the article in a section titled “Bibliography.”
Please use the following models:
For a book: First name Last name, Title, City of publishing, Publishing house, year of publication, p. xx.
For a collective work: First name Last name and First name Last name (dir./coord./eds./etc.), Title, City of publishing, Publishing house, year of publication, page, or First name Last name et al., Title, City of publishing, Publishing house, year of publication, p. xx.
For a chapter of a collective work: First name Last name, “Chapter Title,” in First name Last name, (dir./coord./eds./etc.), Book Title, City of publishing, Publishing house, year of publication, p. xx.
For a journal article: First Name Last Name, “Article Title,” Journal Title, Vol./N °, Date of Publication, p. xx.
For electronic reference: the following text will be inserted at the end of the reference, with the corresponding link: [online] [url], accessed on 01/01/21.
5 / Illustrations, charts and tables
Images accompanying the text should be scanned in high resolution (300 dpi minimum) in JPEG, PNG or TIFF formats. Text files should be distinct from graphic files.
Horizontal images (in landscape mode) are preferred as they are more consistent with page layout constraints. If vertical images are unavoidable, please consider pairing the image with another vertical image.
The author must verify that the images or figures of which he is not the author are free of rights.
Otherwise, the author must request permission to publish from the owner of the image or figure before submitting it to the magazine.
Tables are considered to be figures and must follow the same instructions in terms of file name, figure name, image format (jpg or tif), image size and legibility.
Illustrations, charts and tables must be captioned in the following manner:
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The title of the illustrations should be preceded by the letters “Figure [no.]” or “Table [no.]” and will appear above the illustration.
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The image caption and credits (source, copyright, etc.) will appear under the illustration on two separate lines.
Editorial Line
Placed in the fields of architectural, urban and landscape research, the Cahiers de la recherche architecturale initially developed from the 1970s in research labs of the French schools of architecture, before becoming the Cahiers de la recherche architecturale et urbaine in 1999. The journal initiates in 2018 a new formula online, Les Cahiers: Journal for the Study of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape, targeted towards the research communities concerned by intentional transformations of space, whatever the scales. The journal aims at meeting current interests and issues in these fields, seeking to renew them and to open new directions of research. Three main research issues are more directly questioned. One specifically concerns theoretical aspects, in order to develop exchanges and discussions between theories of design, planning, architecture and landscape. Another issue refers to the materiality of the city, the technical know-how involved in spatial transformation, but also the material dimension of of transfer and mobilization phenomena, often analyzed in other journals from a-spatial angles. Lastly, the third issue questions the project and its design, which holds a special place in the sciences and the practice of space (performative roles of projects, theories of practice). These three poles call for interdisciplinary works, dedicated to trace in-depth explanations of the transformations of the built environment at the Anthropocene Era. The expected scientific production refers to common criteria of peer reviewing processes. It could pay a particular attention to the issues of pictures and visual production in a field where images can serve as discourse.
Les Cahiers: Journal for the Study of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape online issue two or three time a year a thematic folder dedicated to a specific and problematized theme, and which consists of around ten articles in French and English. A call for papers is broadcasted for each thematic heading. Proposals may be in French or English. The evaluation is peer-rewiewed.
The online magazine has also 2 headings to accommodate miscellaneous articles, and outside thematic folders. Proposals may be in French or English. The texts are evaluated and peer-rewiewed.
Perspectives on Contemporary Research: Academic articles that present current and unpublished research, unpublished articles and essays on subjects related to the emergence of new themes and accounts of scholarly methodologies and practices development, book reviews.
Research Materials: The republication of texts, the translation of articles previously unpublished in French, documents such as logbooks, diaries and personal journals that shed light on the activities of researchers in their contemporary contexts, interviews with scholars and practitioners involved in ongoing research.
Editorial Board
Chief Editor:
GAUTHIER BOLLE
CELINE BARRERE
MANUEL BELLO-MARCANO
GAIA CARAMELLINO
ENRICO CHAPEL
BENJAMIN CHAVARDES
AUDREY COURBEBAISSE
MAXIME DECOMMER
ANAT FALBEL
YANKEL FIJALKOW
RALPH GHOCHE
XAVIER GUILLOT
CAROLINE MANIAQUE
JULIETTE POMMIER
FRÉDÉRIC POUSIN
PAOLA SAVOLDI
JEAN SOUVIRON
CORINNE TIRY-ONO
ANDREA URLBERGER
Editorial Assistant
AUDE CLAVEL
Notes
1 British architectural historian Anthony Vidler (1941–2023) also passed away that year.
2 Simona Talenti, L’Histoire de l’architecture en France : émergence d’une discipline, 1863-1914, Paris, Picard, 2000.
3 “L’Histoire : approches et connexion,” Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale et urbaine, n° 26, 1992; Sabine Frommel (dir.), “Méthodes en histoire de l’architecture,” Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale et urbaine, n° 9-10, January 2002.
4 Werner Szambien, “Où va l’histoire de l’architecture?,” Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale et urbaine, n° 26, 1990, p. 6-11.
5 Françoise Hamon and Werner Szambien, “Qui a peur de l’histoire de l’architecture?,” Histoire de l’art, n° 31, October 1995, p. 3-13.
6 Barry Bergdoll and Alice Thomine, “Teaching Architectural History in France: A Shifting Institutional Landscape,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 61, n° 4, December 2002, p. 509-518; Repenser les limites: l’architecture à travers l’espace, le temps et les disciplines, Publications de l’INHA, Paris, 2005. See also Jean-Baptiste Minnaert, “Actualité de la recherche en histoire de l’architecture,” Histoire de l’art, n° 59 “Nouvelles approches en architecture,” 2006, and Carmen Popescu, “Une nouvelle dispute des 'anciens’ et des 'modernes’ ?", in Histoires d’architectures en Méditerranée xixe-xxe siècles, Paris, Éditions de la Villette, 2005, p. 285-310.
7 Dana Arnold, Reading Architectural History, London, Routlegde, 2002.
8 Andrew Leach, What is Architectural History?, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2010.
9 See Jean-Louis Cohen, “Les Horizons nouveaux de l’histoire de l’architecture,” in Jean-Louis Cohen (dir.), L’Architecture entre pratique et connaissance scientifique, Éditions du Patrimoine, 2018.
10 “L’architecte-Historien”, Livraisons Histoire de l’architecture, n°9, first semester, 2005.
11 “Le Projet d’histoire – Histoires de projet. Architectes/historiens dans l’après-guerre,” International conference organized by Benjamin Chavardès, Lorenzo Ciccarelli and Philippe Dufieux in Lyon, November 14 and 15, 2024, École nationale supérieure d’architecture de Lyon and Università degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Architettura.
12 Richard Klein (dir.), À quoi sert l’histoire de l’architecture aujourd’hui?, Paris, Hermann, 2018.
13 Arnaud Timbert, Être historien de l’architecture dans la France des xxe et xxie siècles : des ego-histoires et des vies, University of Zagreb, Croatia, 2020.
14 Gauthier Bolle and Nina Mansion-Prud’homme, “Acteurs et dynamiques de l’histoire de l’architecture à Bordeaux dans la seconde moitié du xxe siècle,” Les Cahiers de la recherche architecturale urbaine et paysagère [Online], November 30, 2020, [http://journals.openedition.org/craup/5267].
15 Antonio Brucculeri, L’Architecture classique et l’approche historique de Louis Hautecoeur : sources, méthodes, actions publiques, dissertation defended at Paris 8 under the supervision of Jean-Louis Cohen in 2002, and Thierry Mandoul, L’“Histoire de l’architecture” d’Auguste Choisy : entre raison et utopie, dissertation defended at Paris 8 under the supervision of Jean-Louis Cohen in 2004.
16 Peter Draper, Reassessing Nikolaus Pevsner, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2004, p. 246; Susie Harries, Nikolaus Pevsner the Life, London, Chatto & Windus, 2011; Orlando di Marino, Manfredo Tafuri oltre la storia, Naples Clean Ed., 2009.
17 Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie, Le Territoire de l’historien, Paris, Gallimard, 1973.
18 Antoine Prost, Douze leçons pour l’histoire, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, 1996.
19 François Bédarida, L’Histoire et le métier d’historien, Paris, Éditions des Sciences de l’Homme, 1995.
20 We refer here to the work directed by Jean-François Sirinelli and Yann Potin: Générations historiennes, xixe-xxie siècles, Paris, Éditions du CNRS, 2019.
21 Ivan Jablonka, L’Histoire est une littérature contemporaine. Manifeste pour les sciences sociales, Seuil, Paris, 2014.
22 Marc Bloch, L’étrange Défaite, Paris, Éditions du Franc-Tireur, 1946, p. 2.
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