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Jeffrey Hogrefe and Scott Ruff with Carrie Eastman and Ashley Simone (eds.)

In Search of African American Space

Redressing Racism

If African American experience emerges from the structure of slavery, how does architecture relate to that experience? African Americans have claimed space in unexpected locations – often in opposition to architecture as a Eurocentric discipline that has served to regulate and exclude them. In Search of African American Space examines both historical record and personal and collective memory to uncover these instances. African American space can be creative and aspirational, taking the form of speech and performance that reflects its fleeting nature.

This anthology of essays from contemporary architects, historians and artists presents a broad range of knowledge and practices that evoke consciousness of this form of space making in the afterlife of slavery.

If African American experience emerges from the structure of slavery, how does architecture relate to that experience? African Americans have claimed space in unexpected locations – often in opposition to architecture as a Eurocentric discipline that has served to regulate and exclude them. In Search of African American Space examines both historical record and personal and collective memory to uncover these instances. African American space can be creative and aspirational, taking the form of speech and performance that reflects its fleeting nature.

This anthology of essays from contemporary architects, historians and artists presents a broad range of knowledge and practices that evoke consciousness of this form of space making in the afterlife of slavery.

“With details of artistic and architectural responses to the perennial search for a meaningful space, as well as a huge number of historical illustrations, the book is essential reading for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of modern America.”
– Wallpaper

Edited by Jeffrey Hogrefe, Scott Ruff, with Carrie Eastman and Ashley Simone

With contributions by Tina M. Campt, Sara Caples and Everardo Jefferson, Radiclani Clytus, J. Yolande Daniels, Jeffrey Hogrefe, Ann S. Holder, Walis Johnson, Elizabeth J. Kennedy, Rodney Leon, Scott Ruff, Marisa Williamson

Design: Integral Lars Müller

16,5 × 24 cm, 6 ½ × 9 ½ in

256 pages, 148 illustrations

paperback

2020, 978-3-03778-633-8, English
Architectural Research Socio-cultural Studies
CHF 35.00

Jeffrey Hogrefe

Jeffrey Hogrefe is an author, critic, and founding coordinator of the Writing Program at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture. He is the creator of the Abolitionist Landscape Project, a cultural remapping of the Potomac River Valley. His work has received support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the US Department of Education Fund for Improvement of Post Secondary Education. He has been published widely by organizations that include the Modern Language Association, Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, Association for Study of Art of the Present, and the International Society for the Study of Surrealism. He received his B.A. from The University of California at Berkeley.

Scott Ruff

Scott Ruff is a Visiting Associate Professor of Architecture at the Pratt Institute and the Tulane University School of Architecture. Ruff received his first professional Bachelors of Architecture degree from Cornell University and a Masters of Architecture from Cornell University. He is the principal of RuffWorks Studio, a research and design studio specializing in culturally informed projects and community engagement. He has published numerous articles in Thresholds, a journal produced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Architecture, that include “Signifying: An African-American Language to Landscape”, “Spatial ‘wRapping’: A Speculation on Men’s Hip-Hop Fashion”.

CHF 35.00