{"id":53291,"date":"2026-01-09T09:30:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T14:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/?post_type=cu_story&p=53291"},"modified":"2026-01-09T12:27:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T17:27:41","slug":"aah-students-field-trip-to-the-vernacular-architecture-forum","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/story\/aah-students-field-trip-to-the-vernacular-architecture-forum\/","title":{"rendered":"AAH Students Field Trip to the Vernacular Architecture Forum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n AAH Students Field Trip to the Vernacular Architecture Forum\n <\/h1>\n \n \n\n

By Paul Jasen<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

For four days in June, 2024, Michigan\u2019s remote Keweenaw Peninsula hosted architectural historians from across North America. Among them were Carleton University contract instructor Valentina Davila and a group of Art and Architectural History<\/a> (AAH) students eager to learn about unfamiliar surroundings and share ideas with newfound colleagues at the Conference of the Vernacular Architecture Forum (VAF). <\/p>\n\n\n

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The remarkable diversity of the attendees truly stood out. We personally met and interacted with scholars across the continent, of various backgrounds and experiences. – Cam, AAH student<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Art and Architectural History students at the Vernacular Architecture Forum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Keweenaw, which is believed to be a corruption of an Ojibwe word meaning \u201cportage\u201d, might seem an unlikely place for a conference about architecture. The road in is densely forested, dotted by rural homes, functional-looking commercial buildings and remnants of the copper industry. The small city of Houghton (population 8,000) resembles other communities at this end of the Great Lakes. Its lift bridge and waterfront suggest a history of mining and shipping. Clapboard homes lend a coast feel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It is this localized \u2018ordinariness\u2019 that attracted conference organizers and our Carleton contingent, in the first place. The mission of the VAF is, in fact, to bring attention to \u2018ordinary buildings and landscapes,\u2019 and to foster a more inclusive study of architecture that goes beyond the key structures, figures and movements in the field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The term \u2018vernacular architecture\u2019 is meant to describe the vast majority of the buildings we use and occupy on a daily basis. (Davila also uses the term \u2018architecture of place\u2019). To study vernacular architecture means treating the built environments as an articulation of local priorities, histories and economies, as a participant in a broader material culture of a given place, and as a record of what everyday life is, or has been, for people there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this end, VAF conferences aim to immerse attendees in the host community by supplementing the regular academic proceedings with full days of guided tours. For AAH students, this was a unique opportunity to combine theory and practice with the sheer pleasure of discovery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The combination of rigorously curated tours of the local area and the wide-ranging, stimulating conference sessions made this trip an unforgettable experience. – Keegan<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Short road trips focused on Keweenaw\u2019s copper nineteenth-century mining heritage, taking the group to nearby Copper Island (across Superior from Ontario\u2019s once-thriving Silver Islet), the village of Calumet, and down into the Quincy mine, once the economic engine of the area. The group were also welcomed into turn-of-the-century private homes \u2013 some of them prefabricated kits, ordered from the Sears catalogue \u2013 to get a more tangible sense of how Copper Rush settlers once lived.  For Keegan, these tours brought to mind T.S. Eliot\u2019s observation that \u2018even the humblest material artifact, which is the product and the symbol of a particular civilization, is an emissary of the culture out of which it comes.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The artifacts that most captured Chloe\u2019s imagination were the \u2018elegant\u2019 and \u2018meticulously designed\u2019 antique Singer sewing machines that had been so vital to early industrial life. This fascination began during a class trip to Ottawa\u2019s Museum of Science and Technology. Then, in Keweenaw, they kept popping up as illustrations of a bygone material culture and as historic examples of early industrial design. The game of tracking them down in shops, museums and homes, quickly turned into a treasure hunt and a \u2018bonding moment\u2019 for the group.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For Davila, another bonding moment was when the group experienced the awesome machinery of the Quincy mine. The massive equipment served as a reminder of the intense investment and industrial activity that once characterized this quiet corner of North America.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Each discovery made me reflect on how deeply intertwined objects and narratives are, and how much they can shape our understanding of a community\u2019s identity. This immersion in Keweenaw\u2019s material culture was more than just an academic exercise… I gained new perspectives on the importance of preserving heritage and the role of sustainability in modern design. – Chloe<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Davila is quick to praise the creativity and inquisitiveness of her AAH students, and their eagerness to make the slightly arduous journey to Northern Michigan for a firsthand case study of a place-in-time.  She also notes the generous funding from Carleton\u2019s School for Studies in Art and Culture<\/a>, and from the VAF itself, which made the experience possible. By the end of the trip, students had not only discovered new areas of academic interest, they had also joined a welcoming community that promised still more opportunities like this in the future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For four days in June, 2024, Michigan\u2019s remote Keweenaw Peninsula hosted architectural historians from across North America. Among them were Carleton University contract instructor Valentina Davila and a group of Art and Architectural History (AAH) students eager to learn about unfamiliar surroundings and share ideas with newfound colleagues at the Conference of the Vernacular Architecture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":120,"featured_media":53293,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[599],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-53291","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-ssac"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/53291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/120"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/53291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53316,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/53291\/revisions\/53316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=53291"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/fass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=53291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}