Design between architecture’s practice and academy for areas in need.

Design between architecture’s practice and academy for areas in need.
Image by Dwight Cendrowski

Saturday, April 25, 2009

A Gag Order on Race in Architecture

A classmate kindly forwarded an article written by Anne Lui for the Cornell Daily Sun on April 21st. The article highlights the relative acceptance of culture (certain cultures) in architectural discourse versus the distractive qualities of race and related experiences.

Lui references David Adjaye, a London based Architect who was recently awarded the commission to design the National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as
a student’s proposal for "a Meier-esque home-cum-crematorium" situated on the border between Mexico and the United States.

ABSTRACT

"Race is a painfully awkward topic in architecture, while culture remains the go-to book for, uh, copying. David Adjaye, said in an interview with New York Magazine in 2007, “If a Japanese architect talks about Shintoism, everyone goes, ‘Wow.’ If an African architect talks about an African village, it is somehow weird in the Western context.


...there’s something notably missing from all those glossy photos: the controversy. Before Adjaye’s win, some minority architects criticized the panel for the fact that most of the final firms were predominantly white (the special six were: Foster + Partners, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Moody Nolan, Moshe Safdie and Associates and Adjaye’s team.) Adjaye, after building the Stephen Lawrence Centre, which commemorates a murdered black architecture student, was accused of having won the competition because he too was black. Both controversies, however, remained mostly in the blogosphere; The New York Times did not mention it, and The Architect’s Newspaper relegated race controversy to a puny last paragraph.

Why the silence? Why is it OK to talk about what age-old African architecture influenced the new Museum (“Yoruban” columns) but it’s not OK to talk about how David Adjaye’s experiences as a black Brit influences his work?

...It has already become reasonably in vogue to hire Jewish American architects to design Holocaust museums and memorials; it is understood that their backgrounds and their experiences, as well as the stories and legacies of their families, inform these designers’ work. But still modern architectural discourse shies away from personal experience, from race and identity, in favor of weaker references to alien cultures — like water for chocolate, we draw the works of ancient builders instead of speaking about the stories that mean the most to us."


An anonymous comment read:

"Architecture should be about the work. Adjaye is a great architect and his background is very interesting as well, but that is a different subject. The work is the product of many factors but the Idea is the main thing and one needs no experience to have a great idea... Race and gender can inform idea consciously or unconsciously but detract, in my opinion, from the main story. This article assumes that members of an ethnic group share values and influences and I find this similar to stereotypical thinking, which should be vigilantly eschewed."

THOUGHTS?



To read complete article and related comments visit:
http://cornellsun.com/section/arts/content/2009/04/21/gag-order-race-architecture

2 comments:

  1. Adjaye is British/Ghanaian, although he may have been born in Tanzania..his father was diplomatic corp..

    The "anonymous comment" you quote seems, in my opinion, to represent the default position of "architecture" today: Architecture is architecture and autonomous. But the reality is that architecture is a function of cultural attitudes; if we only work (think) within the domains of some cultures, we clearly are not considering all sets of possible architectures.

    Sometimes Adjaye's work seems very internal to clean British modernism, which makes sense--that is the school in which he trained. But of his moves suggest subtle critique as well--like dirty house, which is not a white building (black boxes?). Typically in lectures he introduces each project with an African artwork that typifies the design concept. And the facades of his Idea Stores and school of management in Russia do evoke textiles (kente)..

    Ultimately, if the museum is hot, everyone wins.

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  2. Dk...thanks for clarifying!

    The comment caught our attention for the very reason you highlighted - it depicted the generic position of our discipline(s. It struck us even more so, because the author of the anonymous comment could not read Anne Lui very simple connection between culture and racial constructs (even more so) and its implications on design-- whether subconsious or not; whether we within or with-out recognize.

    It is the ability to remain INSIDE without consciousness of "other" that priviledges the position. It was also the comment that ignored affinities that people with like experiences share (and I speak not only of race here.)

    What intrigues me more is that some believe that a field that so explicity records, defines and shapes experiences can be VOID of just that!

    I am happy to see Adjaye (hopefully leading) this design team...and appreciate that whether subtly or not his own and our SHARED experiences which (the building typology encourages) will be (perhaps have been - imagery is limited) reflected, embraced and enriched in the final construction.

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