Florida State University and UCLA share resources to create a new history of Indigenous thatch work architecture in the Americas

2023-05-26T12:00:00-04:00

A new project led by Florida State University associate professor Paul Niell is working to retrace the lineage of thatch work architectures used by different African and Indigenous diaspora groups throughout the Americas in the hopes of documenting and preserving their impact on history for future generations of scholars.

Niell teaches Caribbean art and architectural history in the school’s College of Fine Arts with a focus on the architecture and cultural landscapes of the Hispanophone Caribbean in the late-18th and early-19th centuries.

Recently, he coordinated with UCLA associate professor Stella Nair, several graduate students, and representatives of different Indigenous groups to organize a three-part conference titled “Forgotten Canopy: Ecology, Ephemeral Architecture, and Imperialism in the Caribbean, South American, and Transatlantic Worlds,” that provided a framework for further study into the vernacular domestic structures that predominated in both regions.

A modern examp...

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Florida State University and UCLA share resources to create a new history of Indigenous thatch work architecture in the Americas