The following essay was published in the September issue of The Architectural Review for their “Reputations” series. You can read its edited version here on the magazine’s website. I would like to thank the editors for permitting me to publish the longer version of this essay on my personal blog. bell hooks taught us to […]
I recently participated in an interview at the Claridge House hotel in Chicago to discuss the contents of my new book Building Character with David Huber, the producer and host of the podcast Interstitial. Interstitial is “a show about space and the consequences of our designs.” It is the first series offered by the online […]
William A. Gleason, Sites Unseen: Architecture, Race, and American Literature (New York: NYU Press, 2011) TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Race, Writing, Architecture: American Patterns Cottage Desire: The Bondwoman’s Narrative and the Politics of Antebellum Space Piazza Tales: Architecture, Race, and Memory in Charles Chesnutt’s Conjure Stories Imperial Bungalow: Structures of Empire in Richard Harding Davis and Olga […]
Walter Benn Michaels, The Trouble With Diversity: How We Learned to Love Diversity and Ignore Inequality (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006) Table of Contents Introduction 1.The Trouble With Race 2. Our Favorite Victims 3. Richer, Not Better 4. Just and Unjust Rewards 5. Who We Are? Why Should We Care? 6. Religion in Politics: The […]
I have been making my way through Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer’s Henry Hobson Richardson and His Work (1888) in the last couple of days. Her biography provides details about his Southern Plantation heritage, his ties with New Orleans Creole culture and his ambivalent attitude toward the Civil War. These details are interesting to me because I have yet […]
Georges Teyssot, A Topology of Everyday Constellations (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2013) Table of Contents A Topology of Everyday Constellations Figuring the Invisible Dream House The Wave The Story of an Idea Toward a Cyborg Architecture Prosthetics and Parasites Windows and Screens I am going to use my post this week to explore the writings […]
Darell Fields, Architecture in Black (Athlone Press, 2000) It is somewhat curious that Architecture in Black has not received more recognition for its study of race in architecture. Not only does it have a critical Introduction by Cornell West, but it is an unconventional take on architectural history. This text is a Janus faced contemplation of racial […]
Cornel West, The Cornel West Reader (New York: Basic Books, 1999) Table of Contents Preface Introduction: To Be Human, Modern and American I: Autobiographical Interlude The Making of an American Radical Democrat of African Descent On My Intellectual Vocation Sing a Song II: Modernity and its Discontents The Ignoble Paradox of Modernity Race and Modernity […]
Race & Architecture 