A session at The College Art Association (CAA) 114th Annual Conference soliciting Contributors
Location and Conference dates: Chicago, February 18鈥21, 2026.
Session Chairs:听Ralph Ghoche, Barnard College and Janna Israel, Princeton University Art Museum
Submissions Deadline:听August 29, 2025.
Submit 250-word abstract Here:听
Session Abstract: Architecture and the Subterranean Realm听The exploitation of the subterranean world has long provided architecture with a rich palette of materials鈥攎etals, stones, and marbles鈥攗sed to construct and embellish buildings. These underground resources have been integral to colonial expansion across the globe, their extraction directly shaping the architectural landmarks and monuments of Western metropoles. While the pursuit of natural resources has generated immense wealth for speculators and institutions, it has also ravaged local landscapes and impoverished Indigenous populations. The subterranean has thus served as a source of material wealth and a contested battleground in the broader struggle for power and control that defines colonial eras; it has galvanized waves of surveyors and entrepreneurs eager to stake their claim in the earth鈥檚 depths. As Frantz Fanon powerfully observed, 鈥淓urope has stuffed itself with the gold and raw materials of colonial countries,鈥 using these riches to 鈥渞aise up her tower of opulence.鈥This panel explores the subsoil and its relationship to discourses on land sovereignty and ownership, extraction, labor, and technique, geological and historical time, ecological decay, nature, and power. By examining the ways in which the subterranean has anchored claims of possession, dispossession, and discovery, we seek to explore how perceptions of鈥撯揳nd access to鈥撯搕he underground have shaped concepts of architecture, infrastructure, landscape, and territory. Paper proposals may address these themes across historical periods and geographies. Potential inquiries include, but are not limited to: building materials, mining and quarrying, labor codes and legislation, treatises, drawings, survey reports, and maps. Enquiries: Ralph Ghoche, rg2169@columbia.edu
