History and Theory of Architecture VIII

Abstract

This lecture course begins with the premise that architecture’s “color,” or its not-quite-so-whiteness, is difficult to see.

Objective

The course will move through projects, concepts, and ideas that have seemingly ignored race and racism, followed by projects that offer anti-racist forms of architectural visions.

Content

Thinking through Architecture’s Color Line, the course explores three arenas that have been central to the formation of what some historians call architecture as a discipline: the profession, the university and the museum. These institutional “nodes” will serve as loose framework to introduce how racial politics were embedded within each structure and will demonstrate how the architectural field was not as white as we might have previously thought: there were communities of color, Black architects and architects-in-training thinking against the architectural grain though the social organizing very much using architectural terms that have not always been at the forefront of the discipline. Organized thematically, the course will move through projects, concepts, and ideas that have seemingly ignored race and racism, followed by projects that offer anti-racist forms of architectural visions.

Resources