Micro-Global Histories of Architecture

Building upon the work of historians such as Francesca Trivellato (2011), I argue in this paper for a renewed articulation between micro and global history in architectural history.

In many aspects, microhistory and global history are methodologically antithetical. While microhistory relies principally on a close reading of primary sources, global history operates through a form of distant reading that sometimes rests exclusively on secondary literature. How do we reconcile those different scales of knowledge and modes of reading the archives? Would it be possible to transgress this opposition and write a global history through close reading and primary sources? Could microhistory function as a useful critique of global history and globalization as a category of knowledge? In other words, could microhistory be used to reveal “the disruption, false starts, or incongruities” (Levi, 2019) of globalization?

To answer those questions, I propose a method of micro-global history. Through the friction of such a conceptual pairing, I aim to denaturalize the methodological divide and open up new ways of reading the archives. I will exemplify this approach by drawing from my current project, in which I explore the intimacies in the 1990s between the architectural firm OMA and Dutch former colonial engineering firms. In this project, I underline the unexpected sedimented histories of colonialism across Southeast Asia, Western Africa, and the North Atlantic in the 1990s. Through the close reading of one document found in the archives of OMA, I will demonstrate the layered global entanglements of this micro-global history