NJIT Professor Becomes Editor in Chief for Society of Architectural Historians Archipedia

The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) has named Gabrielle Esperdy, Professor in the Hillier College of Architecture and Design, to the role of editor in chief for the Buildings of the United States (BUS) book series and SAH Archipedia. BUS was inspired by the famous Pevsner Guides to Buildings of England. Originally published by Oxford University Press, the first BUS books appeared in the early 1990s. Today, volumes of the award-winning series are published by the University of Virginia Press. “Sponsored by SAH and Virginia, SAH Archipedia went live in 2012. Both projects are part of a large-scale research and publication program — embracing all 50 states and the District of Columbia — that was conceived a half century earlier. That’s a long gestation, even by academic standards; in this case it’s had positive consequences, allowing methodology and technology to catch up with the project’s scholarly ambitions,” said Esperdy. 

The content of SAH Archipedia includes building histories and thematic essays from all of the published BUS print volumes as well as specially-commissioned born-digital scholarship. Esperdy, who is SAH Archipedia’s founding editor, is now also filling the role that was held by her predecessor Karen Kingsley, who led the BUS series for 15 years. While the appointment is notable, even more exciting is that the BUS books series and SAH Archipedia are now fully merged, and stand to become an exemplar for the digital humanities as well as a comprehensive documentation of architecture nationally. 

“When I started teaching at a tech school I became more interested in the implications of technology on historical practice. When BUS moved to the University of Virginia Press in the early aughts we knew the series could become the vanguard of what was emerging as digital architectural history. Virginia was at the forefront of digital publications and had invested a lot of money to digitize things like the Founding Fathers series. Now, with SAH Archipedia and BUS fully merged, we have the potential to become a robust digital humanities project in addition to being a digital publication. It is a watershed moment,” said Esperdy. 

Looking back to the future of the past, in an article she wrote in 2013 on the creation of metadata as a scholarly activity, Esperdy noted that, “Like Pevsner’s Buildings of England, every BUS book provides close readings of significant buildings, but unlike Pevsner, who favored what Paul Kennedy has called a ‘churches and castles approach,’ BUS authors embrace a much broader notion of ‘significance’ in order to represent the totality of the American built environment, this country’s ‘dynamic heterogeneity’ vs. ‘the national integrity’ of England, as BUS founding editors described it. In practice, this means that in addition to churches and capitols (there aren’t many castles in America), one also finds mills and mansions, diners and department stores, barns, bungalows and bridges, etc. BUS authors describe and interpret exteriors and interiors, major programmatic elements and minor architectural details, visible materials and hidden construction, considering each building as a discrete structure with its own inherent merit or interest.” 

When considering what SAH Archipedia may become for scholars and historians, the peer reviewed entries, organization and tagging of its contents is where both the current view of architectural history in the United States can be observed, in the form of data about data, as well as the regionalism of scholarship, represented in the sites chosen to represent a state, or an architectural vernacular.  

“Rarely do we think about metadata or its creation as part of our intellectual practice.  But what if we did? We’d discover that metadata has been with us for far longer than we’ve realized, concealed in the taxonomies and classifications we’ve been using to structure disciplinary knowledge since at least the Enlightenment. Even if we’ve dedicated our intellectual practices to upending the canon — with its fusty taxonomies and rigid classifications — we still need the schema, if only to reject it.” 

As described on their website, “SAH Archipedia has continued to grow with the addition of peer-reviewed born-digital content and as new BUS volumes are completed. In 2017 we reached our goal of representing all fifty states in SAH Archipedia. U.S. content is only the beginning, however, as we plan to expand to include global content in the coming years. SAH Archipedia is an authoritative, open-access encyclopedia of the U.S. built environment organized by the Society of Architectural Historians and the University of Virginia Press. It contains histories, photographs, and maps for over 20,000 structures and places. These are mostly buildings, but as you explore SAH Archipedia you will also find landscapes, infrastructure, monuments, artwork, and more.” 

“There was a radicalism in the original BUS project that has been largely forgotten. For many years the built environment in the US was not considered worthy of study. That everything that happened here was somehow dependent on developments elsewhere. There was an implicit notion of pride in the built environment when this series was first conceived” said Esperdy. 

SAH Archipedia also plays a role in advocacy for the preservation of historical sites, and the cultural relevance of the scholarship is apparent. In a recent note on updating content, Esperdy and Managing Editor Catherine Boland Erkkilla observed that, “The built environment is in constant flux, whether from demolition and new construction, renovations and additions, or changing function and use. Social protest and cultural progress can also transform the built environment, as we have witnessed this summer in efforts to remove monuments to the Confederacy from public spaces. As a digital publication, SAH Archipedia strives to ensure that its content is up to date and that published texts accurately reflect physical conditions on the ground. To that end, our editors and authors are reviewing individual entries and essays to identify those that need to be updated… prioritizing updates to entries and essays (and illustrations and metadata) dealing with monuments to the Confederacy and memorials that otherwise symbolize oppression to indicate (1) the removal of statues and other forms of dismantling or transformation, (2) the renaming or retitling of buildings, parks, plazas, bridges, streets, and highways, (3) necessary contextualizing and interpretations in light of new historical research and scholarship.” 

SAH Archipedia was also the recent recipient of a Graham Foundation grant for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts to support editorial work to publish twenty-one new essays in SAH Archipedia. The Twenty Historically Contested Sites: Race and Ethnicity Shaping the Built Environment project collects essays on buildings, sites, and landscapes that document the histories of traditionally underrepresented and marginalized groups.   

President of SAH, Victoria Young, believes Esperdy “is an innovative thinker who understands the role of digital efforts in revealing our nation’s built environment. The Society of Architectural Historians has been a trailblazer in the digital humanities for years and I fully expect Gabrielle’s editorship to take us to even greater heights. Sharing all aspects of our landscapes, from barns to banks, while fully embracing the diversity of makers, users, and historians of these landscapes, will be central to her work. I look forward to the future of SAH Archipedia and BUS under her leadership.”