The 2016 Annual Symposium of the Society of Architectural Historians (Great Britain) will be held on 21 May 2016 at the Royal Institute of British Architects, London.

"The Official Architect ; missing chapters in the history of the profession
Official architects, if considered at all, are now most readily associated with the work of the once powerful local authority architects departments of the post-war era. However they have an earlier and more varied history. During the eighteenth, nineteenth and for much of the twentieth century in Britain the title applied to any architect in salaried employment, often working for the state in departments such as the Office of Works, the Admiralty, or the Post Office. Yet such posts were also relied on in bodies as varied as the Miners Welfare Association, the Imperial War Graves Commission, and large private companies such as Boots, Woolworths, the Co-Operative Wholesale Society, and major railway companies such as the L.M.S. Responsible for the design of large swathes of the built environment the work of such architects was as often referred to derogatively as ‘departmental architecture’ and attacked for its poor quality or gone unnoticed due to the culture of bureaucratic anonymity."

Please send initial 300 word proposal, or enquiries, to the organiser, Dr. Julian Holder, at symposium2016@sahgb.org.uk by 31 October 2015. Review of papers will be finalised by December 31 2015. Papers should present original research and should be of 20 minutes in duration. Draft papers will be welcomed by 31 March 2016. Publication of suitable quality papers is envisaged.

Speakers are not charged the Symposium fee and are invited to an informal dinner as guests of the Society the night preceding the Symposium. All other associated costs such as travel and accommodation must be met by the speakers.