nov.
(n.) Architecture
But…architecture can’t really be prejudiced, right? Buildings have no concept of race or socioeconomic status. Buildings have no biases or feelings in one political direction or another. Objects hold no stance on rights or privileges; people do. The real issue is probably the people, but it most certainly cannot be the architecture.
Well, the definition of architecture might be a good place to start. What is architecture?
Merriam-Webster defines architecture as;
a. The art or science of building.
b. Formation or construction resulting from or as if from a conscious act.
c. A method or style of building.
Ironically enough, none of these definitions equate architecture to a building or construction, but rather a noun encompassing an art, science, formation, construction, act, and/or method. Architecture is never the building itself, but instead it is the fullness of the construction – its body, soul, and spirit. Architecture is the motive, and the building is the monument.
What the monument stands to signify or to echo is the intention of the architecture. The Latin, signum, meaning token, alludes to signification being what the object is a token of or to. Are you aware of what certain buildings and constructions signify in your neighborhood? Are you aware of what certain buildings and constructions are a token of for your environment?
The idea seems much easier when we are talking about a statue or a flag, but why is it so hard when it relates to a building? Is it because they are so permanent? Is it because in most scenarios, when a building is constructed, it’s because of a need? Is the construction of a building, despite the peculiarities of its architectural and design motives, just a necessary evil that we have come to accept in society?
There is a park in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, called Marion Square (formerly known as the Citadel Green). It is a 10-acre public park designed by landscape architect Robert E. Marvin, one of South Carolina’s most distinguished architects of the 20th century. Marion Square, in plan view, takes the shape of the flag of the American confederacy. The park was completed in the 1950s during Charleston’s downtown “beautification” efforts, and maintains the design in its landscape to this day.
Flashback to 1866, Marion Square, then Citadel Square, was the traditional grounds for Charleston’s Emancipation Day Parade. The city’s Black population often gathered at this site to celebrate holidays and to rally for political gatherings. In 1867, African American South Carolinians gathered in the square for a rally that led to the formation of South Carolina’s Republican Party. But by 1954, the site was flattened, covered in eight inches of topsoil, grassed over, and given a crisscross diagonal pathway for pedestrians to cross the park.
The park as a green space on the planet Earth is not prejudiced. Having gone to the site myself, no, I was not broken to tears when walking the diagonal confederate-length pathway. In fact, walking through the park myself, I didn't even think about how the layout might look from a bird's-eye view. Who would? It was only because a friend of mine, who was local to the area, informed me of the design choice imposed upon this historic public space that I learned of what this architecture signified – what it served as a token of. Marion Square is a public park that hosts many community events, so it is easy to forget what the architecture and spatial layout of the space force upon its users, but that doesn't mean that its form does not echo a history of violence and racism.
One might make the same argument for the location of the federal buildings in the great City of New York, which for years pushed back against the idea of chattel slavery being a practice of the most dignified Northeast. The African Burial Ground at Duane St. and Elk St. is just .35 acres of uncovered gravesite. The rest lies beneath the US Commission on Human Rights, the Federal Defenders of New York, and the New York City Department of Buildings. No, these buildings themselves aren't prejudiced, but their existence over land that was deemed suitable for development despite its sacred value to a marginalized population makes them tokens of violent choices.
Until next month,
stay BAD.d