I attended an event last fall at the Center for Architecture, a conversation of architects who had worked in both London and New York, and one of the panelists remarked that whereas in London architects needed to prove their design to politicians, in New York, the people to sway are the board members. That is to say, whereas in London the public supports cultural institutions, and therefore those institutions answer to publicly elected officials, New York’s cultural institutions depend on circles of the wildly wealthy, and therefore answer to plutocrats.
I left the five boroughs for the first time since March this week, driving to New Paltz to join a friend for a hike, and he immediately asked me about the protests in the city. He emphasized police reform and the urgent need for wealth redistribution. It is a theme on which the current protests converge with the Occupy Wall Street protests. The crippling inequalities in our country, where the richest .1% make 196 times more than the bottom 90%, fall particularly hard along racial lines, with one study showing the median wealth of families with a family head between 55 and 64 being $151,000 for whites, $46,100 for blacks, and $43,000 for Hispanics. Louis Brandeis, the Supreme Court Justice, saw ‘industrial liberty,’ that is the right and means to build for oneself, as integral to our political liberties. Or, as he put it more succinctly, “We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”
How do we redistribute equity? Curb coercive, entrenched and concentrated power? Prevent the current political uprising from going the way of Occupy? What role do buildings and design play?
We are accepting pitches for pieces on these questions, and those outlined by Dante last week, as we work to put together our July issue, No. 13. Please send pitches to: editor@nyra.nyc.
- Nicolas Kemper
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The Review is co-hosting, with Interference Archive, a discussion on schools, prisons, housing, and architecture in the context of the uprising against racism and police brutality, this Thursday at 6pm. Rsvp to join us.
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To see an excellent resource putting all of the activism, energy and events in the design community in one place: bit.ly/anti-racist-design
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And we are still standing witness to what is once again a burgeoning, if still undeniably online, schedule of activity - see the full list at: nyra.nyc/events, tell us if you would like to attend and take notes & quotes, and please bring us other events and happenings we have missed.
On Monday (6/15)…
Biodesign Challenge Summit, 1pm
For a non-sequitur.
On Tuesday (6/16)…
Innovative Housing: Delivery, Distance, and Density, 1pm
With an emphasis on international examples.
On Wednesday (6/17)…
Cooper Architecture End of Year Show, 5pm
….a virtual exhibition using Unreal Engine gaming technology to visualize and simulate the Foundation Building, allowing visitors to traverse its spaces and explore student work in a digital environment…
On Thursday (6/18)…
Late 20th-century architectures of socialization and control: schools, prisons, housing, and architecture in the context of the uprising against racism and police brutality, 6pm-7pm
A conversation with Amber Wiley and Joy Knoblauch moderated by the Review’s Dante Furioso.
On Friday (6/19)…
Juneteenth, Design as Protest
A series of weekly design actions is supposed to culminate on Juneteenth - follow #designasprotest for details.
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Building of the Week, River Park Towers
Built 1975, still today the tallest towers in the Bronx, designed by the same architects as the 9/11 memorial reflecting pools, and recently deemed ‘the Death Towers’ by the New York Times for how the virus has ravaged their residents.
Tell us if you would like to tell their story. editor@nyra.nyc
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Finally, we are going to extend our call for donations. In ongoing solidarity with the protests, if you donate $20 or more to an anti-racism organization of your choosing (please consider giving to Black Visions Collective, Movement for Black Lives, or the Black Journalism Fund), send us your receipt and a mailing address, and we will mail you a back-issue, probably No. 10, 11, or 12.