In recent months, the horrific death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed have prompted widespread reflection on the roles of race and racism in architecture. These events have spurred institutional statements, calls for action, and the sharing of syllabi and reading lists on architecture and race. Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present is a timely addition to these efforts.
The result of a four-year interdisciplinary research project, this edited collection aims to “revise one of the core narratives of modern architecture—its association with universal emancipation and progress—by uncovering modernism’s long entanglement with racial thought.” In doing so, it highlights both the pervasiveness of race in modern architecture and its simultaneous omission from the so-called canon of architectural history and pedagogy.
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Irene Cheng, Charles L. Davis II, and Mabel O. Wilson, eds., Race and Modern Architecture: A Critical History from the Enlightenment to the Present (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2020).
Magdalena Miłosz 