Diversifying the Canon with ‘Crossed Histories’
In June 2024, Dr. Cathelijne Nuijsink and Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete held the session “Forging ‘Crossed Histories’ of Twentieth Century Architecture and Urban Design” at the European Architectural History Network (EAHN) conference in Athens. In this session, we posed the methodological challenge of writing alternative histories of architecture and urban design by exploring the concept of histoire croisée. Introduced in the early 21st century by sociologist Bénédicte Zimmermann and historian Michael Werner, histoire croisée offers an alternative to comparative or transfer studies. Based on the active and dynamic principle of “crossing,” this method captures multiple perspectives within a dynamic whole. Rather than merely studying the relationships between different narratives, it focuses on the novel and original elements produced by the crossing, as well as the ways in which it affects each of the “crossed” parties. In this sense, histoire croisée breaks with a one-dimensional perspective that simplifies and homogenizes, in favor of a multidimensional approach that acknowledges plurality and complex configurations.
When applied to the field of architectural history, we believe that “crossed histories” have great potential to diversify the existing, overtly Eurocentric architectural canon. Rather than a unidirectional, dominant narrative focused on a single (white, male) architect, this method encourages a more multifaceted view of architectural developments, analyzing a diverse range of actors who have simultaneously and dynamically contributed to the architectural project. We believe that this method creates space for voices that are currently absent from the canon to be heard in their full right. The challenge of this method is also its strength: to see the reality of the different perspectives of the social groups involved means that scholars must critically examine their own position.
As a follow-up to the EAHN conference session, we organized an international workshop between 2-4 November 2026, at ETH Zurich’s off-campus meeting platform, Congressi Stefano Franscinci, situated on the legendary Monte Verità in Switzerland. For this international workshop, we invited scholars via an open call to explore how to write a crossed history, using as a case study a rich ‘site of encounter’ in twentieth-century architecture and urban design. Selected papers scrutinize the construction of the selected crossing by understanding the various social viewpoints intersecting at the moment of contact, as well as what happened before the crossing and the outcomes and processes of transformation brought about by it. Scholars were equally challenged to add a reflexive component to their crossed history, further nuancing the intersection in terms of their own changing positionality vis-à-vis the object of research. In this workshop, we particularly welcomed contributions that did not assume dominant (Western) narratives but instead took stock of architectural production that had been disregarded through the lens of whiteness, focusing on the roles of marginalised actors in architectural design, the suppressed architectural knowledge of particular stakeholders, or the ignored built environments of specific territories.
Besides a stocktaking of of what ‘crossed histories’ have brought to the field of architecture so far, and exchanging ideas on how to overcome the challenges of this method, these productive workshop presentations and discussions have laid the groundwork for a new scholarly network and an edited volume, ‘Diversifying the Architectural Canon with “Crossed Histories”‘, which is currently in progress. As of April 2026, the workshop papers have been extended into full papers and will now go into peer-review. The goal of this publication is to inspire other historians to write “crossed histories” of their own research topics, working globally to produce a more diverse, polyvocal, and equitable history of architecture and urban design that can substitute the Eurocentric perspective.
