The 12th Australasian Urban History/Planning History Conference is to be hosted by Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand

Conference theme: Landscapes and Ecologies of Urban and Planning History

Dates:  2-5  February 2014

Urbanisation represents a dynamic flux of social histories and natural ecologies woven together across time. The interaction between settlement and landscape told through conflict, discovery, heroism, failure, imagination and policy at different scales presents a rich lode for histories informed by an environmental perspective. This conference affords a special opportunity to explore these interrelationships but will welcome all contributions related to the urban and planning history in Australia and New Zealand. Wellington is an inspired location in which to consider the complex relationships between cities and their settings.  It is situated in a dramatic landscape, with the built environment seemingly perched between rugged, bush-clad hills and a magnificent harbour. As the second Wakefield private colonisation experiment in Australasia, a pre-planned grid city was patched into a paucity of flat land and arrayed across steep inclines at the edge of Te Whanganui-a-Tara (the great harbour of Tara). The accommodation here of people, plan and landscape delivered a settlement of character and beauty. But this conference will assemble many other stories and reflections.

Further information on the conference programme and a call for papers will be issued through 2013.

Early inquiries should be directed to Morten Gjerde morten.gjerde@vuw.ac.nz