Acknowledgments
Early modern architecture and the environmental histories of this period have long been overlooked in favor of the more recent past, embodied by twentieth-century architecture. In response to this oversight, we convened a panel for the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) annual conference in 2019 which took place in Providence, Rhode Island. This panel was accompanied by a public discussion with members of the European Architectural History Network (EAHN) on questions of architecture and environment. Land Air Sea as a book drew its inspiration from this initial panel and benefited from the creative, collaborative energy from these papers given in 2019.
Given pressing exigencies around climate crisis and the urgent need to address sustainability, earlier historical models of architecture, climate, and environment will continue to provide intellectual inspiration for future generations of scholars. This volume represents a modest step towards encouraging methodological approaches that embrace ecological studies, multi-species justice, non-Western epistemologies, and transnational history.
We are grateful to the publishing team at Brill who championed this project from early on. A debt of thanks is owed to our series editor Walter Melion, senior acquisitions editor Arjan van Dijk, and associate editor Ivo Romein. Our three anonymous reviewers also provided critical feedback in shaping the final content of this volume. We would like to show our appreciation for the colleagues who contributed to this volume and especially our families—including Nicholas and Daniel Cox, Rick Deitch and Cosimo—for their enduring patience and loving support.