Abstract

An architectural history that foregrounds materials over the intentions of the architects and other agents of procurement and design places works and the means of their production into fields that do not map neatly on to established geographies. Drawing on a recent body of work concerned with those architectural histories of the Tasman world and the interplay of extractive industries and “grey” architecture, this paper reflects on the conceptual stakes of prioritising specific industries over habitual historiographical frames. Timber’s dual standing as an extracted resource subject to the vicissitudes of trade, and as a building material deployed in settings immediately adjacent to forests and at significant distances from its point of origin, exposes the complexity of a form of architectural history attentive to historical events and the images history necessarily draws from them. The paper responds to a proposal by Mark Crinson intended to address this complexity, suggesting that an architectural history of timber in the specific setting of the colonial Tasman world may offer a useful test.

摘要

将材料置于建筑师和其他采购和设计代理人的意图之上的建筑史将作品​​及其生产手段置于无法完全映射到既定地理区域的领域。借鉴近期有关塔斯曼世界建筑历史以及采掘业与“灰色”建筑的相互作用的一系列工作，本文反思了将特定行业置于习惯性历史框架之上的概念风险。木材作为一种受贸易变迁影响的提取资源，以及作为建筑材料部署在紧邻森林且距离其原产地很远的环境中的双重地位，暴露了一种关注历史事件的建筑历史形式的复杂性，以及历史必然从中汲取的图像。该论文回应了 Mark Crinson 旨在解决这种复杂性的提议，表明在殖民塔斯曼世界的特定环境中木材的建筑历史可能提供有用的测试。