A Fieldwork Forum for the VAF

Abstract

A Fieldwork Forum for the VAF Brent R. Fortenberry and James Michael Buckley Fieldwork—the recording of buildings in situ with measured drawings and photographs—is one of the distinguishing features of vernacular architecture as a field of study. —Thomas Carter and Elizabeth Collins Cromley As Tom Carter and Betsy Cromley emphasize in their Invitation to Vernacular Architecture, the foundational introductory text for our field, fieldwork is central to the work of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. At the 2021 VAF Virtual Conference, we convened a group of VAF members for a plenary session called “Fieldwork Futures” that considered how our work in the field is evolving as intellectual, social, and technological conditions change around us. This panel led to a wide-ranging discussion among all those assembled about what the future of vernacular fieldwork might look like.1 After that session, we asked our panelists to follow up with a round of written commentary for this issue of Buildings & Landscapes, and we are delighted with the result. These articles allow the panelists room to expand on points they made during the session and to issue new challenges to our field in the twenty-first century. All of these authors ask about the meaning and relevance of vernacular fieldwork in the contemporary world and offer suggestions about how our field should carry out its mission to explore the ordinary built environment. Danielle Willkens discusses the opportunities and challenges of digital measurement techniques and demonstrates that there is as much craft involved with these technologies as there is with handheld tape measures and mechanical pencils. Elaine B. Stiles explores how preserving vernacular architecture will require “a fieldwork model that starts with people rather than material and received histories” in order to record for “a more representative, equitable, and just public history landscape” than we have achieved in the past. The role of oral history and ethnography involving living communities is the subject of Sarah Lopez’s reflection on interacting with Mexican migrants, and she offers some insights about how vernacular architecture fieldwork can enlarge the historical record with new types of evidence gleaned from those who presently make use of ordinary spaces. Arijit Sen challenges us to consider going beyond the physical recording of buildings by working with local communities toward social justice and by remaining open to the “serendipity” we always find out in the field. As we begin the exciting Mellon-funded VAF/ University of Virginia African American fieldwork program this summer, we will have the opportunity to test all of these methods of updating our fieldwork practice. We hope that by continuing our conversation at last year’s conference, this set of essays will help us keep thinking about our fieldwork in future issues of B&L, in conference sessions, and, of course, on long tour bus rides. notes 1. Thomas Carter and Elizabeth Collins Cromley, Invitation to Vernacular Architecture: A Guide to the Study of Ordinary Buildings and Landscapes (University of Tennessee Press, 2005), xvi. Copyright © 2022 Vernacular Architecture Forum