ACAHUCH welcomes 2020 Research Fellows
ACAHUCH is pleased to annouce its 2020 Research Fellows. Both candidates come with diverse, interesting and engaging areas of research expertise. We look forward to their contributions to the Research Centre and the Melbourne School of Design.
Dr Macarena de la Vega de León
Macarena is an Architect and holds a PhD in Architectural History.
As a postdoctoral research fellow at ACAHUCH, she is undertaking the research project ‘The Mental Life of the Architectural Historian of Australia and New Zealand’ for which she was awarded the 2019 David Saunders Founder’s Grant. The project aims to be an oral history of the past fifteen years in the life of SAHANZ, since the publication of Julia Gatley’s historical account, “SAHANZ: The First 20 Years, 1984-2004” (2004). She has travelled throughout Australia and New Zealand, interviewing selected longstanding members of the Society about their interest in architecture and its history, the development of their scholarly career and their involvement with SAHANZ.
Between 2018 and 2019, Macarena was part of the research project ‘Is Architecture Art? A history of categories, concepts and recent practices’ of the Centre for Architecture, Theory, History and Criticism (ATCH), at the School of Architecture, University of Queensland in partnership with Ghent University funded by a Discovery Grant of the Australian Research Council. Her field of interest is the study of the writing of architectural history, its historiography, with a focus on the recent past and the ‘global.’
She serves as Social Media and Communications Manager and committee member of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ).
Dr James Lesh
Dr James Lesh researches urban history and heritage conservation with a focus on Australian cities. His work examines twentieth- and twenty-first century Australian urban, planning and architectural conservation theory and practice. It also considers the capacity for cultural heritage to address urban challenges, such as enhanced community participation and design outcomes, by adopting methodological pluralism and evidence-based approaches. Another area of focus is the persistent urban historical relationship between cities, modernity, development and heritage.
His publications on urban heritage topics have appeared in leading refereed journals including the Journal of Urban History, International Journal of Heritage Studies and Change Over Time. He authored the article on ‘Heritage Conservation’ in the Routledge Handbook of Place (2020). In his scholarly writings, he has explored, for instance, the relationship between postmodern skyscrapers and heritage conservation; the Australian heritage philosophy of the ‘National Estate’; the methodological cases for (i) the integration of public history and (ii) historical and geographic conceptions of place in urban heritage management; and, the influential idea of ‘social value’ in Australian heritage since the 1960s.
James also contributes to wider discussions around history and conservation, to local and nationally syndicated publications, media outlets, and news resources. He has offered urban history perspective on topics such as the Sydney lockout laws, inner-suburban trendification, and flammable cladding.
He holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, an MA from the University of London, and has lived in Melbourne, Sydney and London. In 2019, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning. He previously served as a Research Assistant at the University of Melbourne between 2014 and 2018 and as a Research Fellow at the Menzies Institute Australia, King’s College London between 2016 and 2018.
Over the next year, he will complete his monograph on evolutions in urban heritage conservation in twentieth-century Australian cities and co-edit a book collection on historic places, emotion, and place attachment.