The Black Reconstruction Collective (BRC) is an American architecture

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...

. The BRC was formed by participants in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

(MoMA) ''Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America'' project which was exhibited in the spring of 2021.

History

Formation

The immediate origins sprung from a 2018 meeting between Sean Anderson, an MoMA curator, and

Mabel O. Wilson Mabel O. Wilson (born 1963) is an American architect, designer, and scholar. She is the founder of Studio& and a professor at the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University Graduate School of Architect ...

, author of the essay ''White by Design from Among Others: Blackness at Moma'', from which resulted in MoMA curators asking the questions: “How can architecture address a user that has never been accurately defined? How do we construct blackness?”. This led to an inaugural meeting in September 2019 to discuss the planned ''Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America'' at the MoMA with ten potential exhibitors resolved to form the BRC, being inspired by a presentation from

Saidiya Hartman Saidiya Hartman (born ) is an American writer and academic focusing on African-American studies. She is currently a University Professor at Columbia University. Early life Hartman was born in and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She earned a B. ...

and

Tina Campt Tina Campt is Roger S. Berlind ’52 Professor of Humanities at Princeton University. Campt previously held faculty positions as Owen F. Walker Professor of Humanities at Brown University, Director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women and A ...

and their formation of the ''Practicing Refusal Collective'' Black feminist forum. The BRC was formed by Emanuel Admassu, Germane Barnes, Sekou Cooke, J. Yolande Daniels,

Felecia Davis Felecia Davis is an American architect, engineer and educator. She is principal of FELECIA DAVIS STUDIO where she bridges art, engineering, design and architecture. Davis is known for her work in computational textiles. Education Davis receive ...

Mario Gooden Mario Gooden (born 1965) is an architect in the United States. He is the principal at Huff + Gooden Architects which he co-founded with Ray Huff in 1997. Gooden is also a Professor of Practice at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and ...

Walter Hood Walter J. Hood (born 1958, Charlotte, NC) is an American professor and former chair of landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and principal of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California. In 2019, Hood was awarded the MacA ...

Olalekan Jeyifous Olalekan Jeyifous (born 1977), commonly known as Lek (pronounced "Lake"), is a Nigerian-born visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He is currently a visiting lecturer at Cornell University, where he also received his Bachelor of Architecture in ...

, V. Mitch McEwen, and Amanda Williams and all placed newly commissioned works in the exhibition.

Reconstructions exhibition

The ''Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America'' exhibition opened at the MoMA in February 2021 and ran through to 31 May 2021. A notable exhibit was a large-scale fabric-printed BRC manifesto covering and disrupting directions to the galleries that bore the name of

Philip Johnson Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 – January 25, 2005) was an American architect best known for his works of modern and postmodern architecture. Among his best-known designs are his modernist Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut; the pos ...

, the controversial original director of the architecture and design department of the MoMA who espoused racist and white supremacist views in his youth, and failed to include a single Black architect or designer in MoMA's collection during his 6 decade tenure. The

Barnes Barnes may refer to: People * Barnes (name), a family name and a given name (includes lists of people with that name) Places United Kingdom *Barnes, London, England **Barnes railway station ** Barnes Bridge railway station ** Barnes Railway Bri ...

work ''A Spectrum of Blackness: The Search for Sedimentation in Miami'' explores locations in that city such as beaches which Black disporia helped build and were not allowed to access; and how these can be seen as places of "possibility" and "community". ''We Outchea: Hip-Hop Fabrications and Public Space'' by

Cooke Cooke is a surname derived from the occupation of cook. Notable people with the surname include: * Alexander Cooke (died 1614), English actor * Alfred Tyrone Cooke, of the Indo-Pakistani wars * Alistair Cooke KBE (1908–2004), British-American j ...

uses a concrete stoop (staircase) to depict how the community responded to the division caused by the building of

Interstate 81 Interstate 81 (I-81) is a north–south (physically northeast–southwest) Interstate Highway in the eastern part of the United States. Its southern terminus is at I-40 in Dandridge, Tennessee; its northern terminus is on Wellesley Island ...

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

. Shaw of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' observed

Afrofuturism Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocu ...

and speculation are themes that are present in many of the Reconstruction works, and illustrated

Hood Hood may refer to: Covering Apparel * Hood (headgear), type of head covering ** Article of Academic dress#Hood, academic dress ** Bondage hood, sex toy * Hoodie, hooded sweatshirt Anatomy * Clitoral hood, a hood of skin surrounding the clitori ...

s ''Black Towers/Black Power'' envisaging a future for San Pablo Avenue in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

, a central point for the

Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...

, the party's ten points mapping to ten towers on proposed building sites of

nonprofit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

s. Myer's of The Architect's Newspaper notes almost all of Reconstruction's work "directly incorporates or gestures toward a kind of cartography", exampling Daniels’s ''black city: The Los Angeles Edition'' as an overt pair mapping between wireframe isometric maps paired with information of the associated neighborhood printed in gold

filigree Filigree (also less commonly spelled ''filagree'', and formerly written ''filigrann'' or ''filigrene'') is a form of intricate metalwork used in jewellery and other small forms of metalwork. In jewellery, it is usually of gold and silver, ma ...

Post exhibition

During the exhibition the BRC has used talks, lectures and interactive discussions to on subjects including

environmental justice Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justic ...

, architecture of Black futures, and the possible shape of architecture of reparations. Funds raised have been used to support the annual budget with future plans to grant other Black spatial practitioners.

Mission

Shaw of ''

'' newspaper quotes the collective's objects is “take up the question of what architecture can be – not a tool for imperialism and subjugation, not a means for aggrandizing the self, but a vehicle for liberation and joy”.

References

Footnotes

Sources

* * * * * *