Afraid of riots during the protests, many stores in SOHO had put up plywood across their shopfronts. Presented with so many blank surfaces, artists took the opportunity to cover them with protest art. Last week, my wife and I rode our bikes through the open-air gallery. I stopped, transfixed by one mural, only to be hurried along by my wife: ‘Looks like a phony.’ Indeed, on further reading, it seems some of the art had been commissioned by the stores themselves.
But if the art is good, does it matter that a corporation paid the artist to make it? If a building is good, does it matter who built it - and why? Would there have been a Vitra Fire Station without Zaha? An aqua tower without Jeanne Gang? A Ronchamp without Corb? Are they important because they represent the values of an establishment that told us these buildings are important, or are they really intrinsically important, the way algebra or physics are important?
Representation versus reality is a question I imagine architecture faculties must be weighing right now, as they work to diversify their reading lists and precedents away from the white male canon. If you are working through this question yourself, I would love to hear about your thoughts and approach - write to us at [editor@nyra.nyc].
Some buildings are really bad. Buildings - overcrowded and poor quality housing - objectively killed New Yorkers during the pandemic. (So did poorly designed nursing homes, a question explored by Justin Davidson this week in his article, “The American Nursing Home Is a Design Failure.”)
Winning real concessions, not just representation, is also a priority now for the Black Lives Matter movement. They have been unambiguous since the beginning that it cannot be enough that slogans are shouted, that letters are painted on streets, or that schools are renamed, or that corporations issue statements and commission protest art to adorn their plywood - there needs to be a real redistribution of power. Jamelle Bouie emphasized the expansive platform of BLM in his piece, ‘Beyond White Fragility,’ pointing out that the fight for racial equality goes hand in hand with the fight for economic equality, that one cannot exist without the other.
For New York’s architecture institutions, this will be a light week. The Architectural League is having its 139th annual meeting (6/30), Cornell has a series of promising career talks (6/30 + 7/2), and there is a lunchtime talk about Arcology at Arcosanti (6/30). See the full list, and times, on our website. Tell us if you plan to attend these events or any other conversations, and would like to write about them for the Review, tell us.
Co-hosting with The Ballot, The Review is going to have its own lunchtime talk, 1pm ET on Thursday (7/2), about the architecture of Yemen, the ongoing war there, and America’s ongoing role in that war. Our own way of observing the fourth of July week. More details to come, but save the date.
- Nicolas Kemper