Oral history in architectural research

Oral testimony

Architectural scholars tend to use texts, drawings, and photographs to craft their narratives. Oral testimony has rarely been taken seriously, and when it is, architects are commonly given the platform to discuss buildings. However, there are others who can speak for and about buildings and tell their own stories of what it is like to construct, experience, and live within buildings. Could their stories reveal new dimensions in architecture? Would such accounts alter our understanding of our discipline? In this workshop, participants will be invited to reflect on such questions, and thereby to consider the radical potential of this research method that has historically been cast as subjective, inexpert, partial, and unreliable.