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Hip-Hop Architecture
“This book is not for you. It is not for architectural academic elites. It is not for those who have gentrified our neighborhoods, overly intellectualized the profession, and ignored all contemporary Black theory within the discipline. You have made architecture a symbol of exclusion, oppression, and domination rather than expression, aspiration, and inspiration. This book is not for conformists-Black, White, or other.”
As architecture grapples with its own racist legacy, Hip-Hop Architecture outlines a powerful new manifesto-the voice of the underrepresented, marginalized, and voiceless within the discipline. Exploring the production of spaces, buildings, and urban environments that embody the creative energies in hip-hop, it is a newly expanding design philosophy which sees architecture as a distinct part of hip-hop's cultural expression, and which uses hip-hop as a lens through which to provoke new architectural ideas.
Examining the present and the future of Hip-Hop Architecture, the book also explores its historical antecedents and its theory, placing it in a wider context both within architecture and within Black and African American movements. Throughout, the work is illustrated with inspirational case studies of architectural projects and creative practices, and interspersed with interludes and interviews with key architects, designers, and academics in the field. This is a vital and provocative work that will appeal to architects, designers, students, theorists, and anyone interested in a fresh view of architecture, design, race and culture.
Includes Foreword by Michael Eric Dyson.
As architecture grapples with its own racist legacy, Hip-Hop Architecture outlines a powerful new manifesto-the voice of the underrepresented, marginalized, and voiceless within the discipline. Exploring the production of spaces, buildings, and urban environments that embody the creative energies in hip-hop, it is a newly expanding design philosophy which sees architecture as a distinct part of hip-hop's cultural expression, and which uses hip-hop as a lens through which to provoke new architectural ideas.
Examining the present and the future of Hip-Hop Architecture, the book also explores its historical antecedents and its theory, placing it in a wider context both within architecture and within Black and African American movements. Throughout, the work is illustrated with inspirational case studies of architectural projects and creative practices, and interspersed with interludes and interviews with key architects, designers, and academics in the field. This is a vital and provocative work that will appeal to architects, designers, students, theorists, and anyone interested in a fresh view of architecture, design, race and culture.
Includes Foreword by Michael Eric Dyson.
- GenresArchitectureNonfiction
288 pages, Hardcover
Published April 22, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 26, 2021
Not quite a manifesto, more than a survey, Hip-Hop Architecture is an impressive piece of work even when its coded around all the things it doesn't want to be. The central issue idea is to tryto non-exclusively draw in the creativity of domiant modern culture (ie hip-hop) and use that energy and its forms of creativity to revitalise architecture, Some of that is nearly literal, of the four pillars of hip-hop graffiti is a literal architectural act. But Cooke is canny enough to not want to close anything down, he is loathe to define hip-hop closely (wise) and equally doesn't want to define architecture too tightly (even wiser). So what is hip-hop architecture? After a long battle to not define it, he offers "Hip-Hop Culture in Built Form".
Cooke has been teaching Hip-Hop Architecture, and run symposiums and exhibitions on the idea for a while now, so there is some concrete work to play with, but also as he comes from academia there is plenty of that baggage to unpack too. He is wary (do you get a theme - he is often wary) of the traps of theoretical definitions, just as he does not want to speak for anyone else in the field. With all these caveats and self imposed barriers in place it is surprising that some really rather concrete proposals and examples are pushed forward. But partially this is because the birth of hip-hop is in itself a architecturally predicated event - the not quite glib suggestion that the forefathers of hip-hop were Corbusier and Robert Moses (notorious NYC town planner who bulldozed neighbourhoods and created projects). This again create more tensions, the conditions to create hip-hop were poor housing, does building hip-hop inspired, or systemically hip-hop compliant buildings perpetrating inequality? All of these ideas get aired, and poked at - Cooke does not want to create buildings which are bad for people, but is also aware that in remixing buildings and allowing for community co-creation that might be an outcome. But yet again, with the baseline question that how is this necessarily worse that current practice?
The practice section is where the theory hits the road and it is a messy meeting: not so much that the ideas have poor consequences but that the practice of hip-hop architecture has rarely been carried out, its a distillation of ideas which run counter to current standard practice. If this was a British book I daresay there would have been a significant amount of space taken up in decolonising architecture, to look at the components which are from a Western tradition with fresh eyes. Instead the practice of aesthetic design leans on hip-hop which is itself about sampling, remixing, creating new out of old. In the practice section the most interesting examples to me were ones where communities were invited to engage to remix or redesign the space. In one the built - but not finished - building was left to "steep" for a few weeks, during which the building was left as accessible like the kind of secure but abandoned warehouse that gets aggressively tagged. In this time any graffiti or art would naturally be created, and when the developer takes it back would form the basis of the built design (I think I really responded to the word steep here). In a second example, part prefab / modular housing would be built, with the services and basics plumbed in - but the tools and components to add and redesign the spaces would also be there (placement of internal wall for bedrooms, garage, porch or other, colours and furnishing). This is a little tinker-town remixing, perhaps from a relatively set amount of components, but suggestion that the freedom to have this control creates a shared space - a greater version of the individualisation process of flowerboxes and parasols that dotted Corbusiers edifices.
I know very little about architecture, and a only a touch more about hip-hop, but I devoured this book as you do when you are confronted with new ideas that excite you. And yet because Cooke's is an academic architect, it is the opposite of a polemic, indeed I wonder if some of the positions on race within architecture could be more powerful. Nevertheless the point is made that architecture is still a very white job in the US (and I daresay everywhere else in the West) and some of the issues around sustainability and working with a community are ideas which have probably been given lip-service for years, are actually given a framework here. Its bold when it needs to be bold, discursive and funny when it needs that. It has all the hip-hop culture mea culpas whilst also dismissing them broadly as against the point (why criticise hip-hop architecture for the potential of misogynistic builds when classical architecture is RIGHT THERE!) There is even a playfulness in the way that all the musical quotes have been taken out due to rights costs, but the footnotes can tell you exactly where to hear them. And considering that b-boying is one of the four pillars of hip-hop, the fact he takes well over half the book before he drops the phrase "Dancing About Architecture" just goes to show how many original ideas are stuffed in here.
Cooke has been teaching Hip-Hop Architecture, and run symposiums and exhibitions on the idea for a while now, so there is some concrete work to play with, but also as he comes from academia there is plenty of that baggage to unpack too. He is wary (do you get a theme - he is often wary) of the traps of theoretical definitions, just as he does not want to speak for anyone else in the field. With all these caveats and self imposed barriers in place it is surprising that some really rather concrete proposals and examples are pushed forward. But partially this is because the birth of hip-hop is in itself a architecturally predicated event - the not quite glib suggestion that the forefathers of hip-hop were Corbusier and Robert Moses (notorious NYC town planner who bulldozed neighbourhoods and created projects). This again create more tensions, the conditions to create hip-hop were poor housing, does building hip-hop inspired, or systemically hip-hop compliant buildings perpetrating inequality? All of these ideas get aired, and poked at - Cooke does not want to create buildings which are bad for people, but is also aware that in remixing buildings and allowing for community co-creation that might be an outcome. But yet again, with the baseline question that how is this necessarily worse that current practice?
The practice section is where the theory hits the road and it is a messy meeting: not so much that the ideas have poor consequences but that the practice of hip-hop architecture has rarely been carried out, its a distillation of ideas which run counter to current standard practice. If this was a British book I daresay there would have been a significant amount of space taken up in decolonising architecture, to look at the components which are from a Western tradition with fresh eyes. Instead the practice of aesthetic design leans on hip-hop which is itself about sampling, remixing, creating new out of old. In the practice section the most interesting examples to me were ones where communities were invited to engage to remix or redesign the space. In one the built - but not finished - building was left to "steep" for a few weeks, during which the building was left as accessible like the kind of secure but abandoned warehouse that gets aggressively tagged. In this time any graffiti or art would naturally be created, and when the developer takes it back would form the basis of the built design (I think I really responded to the word steep here). In a second example, part prefab / modular housing would be built, with the services and basics plumbed in - but the tools and components to add and redesign the spaces would also be there (placement of internal wall for bedrooms, garage, porch or other, colours and furnishing). This is a little tinker-town remixing, perhaps from a relatively set amount of components, but suggestion that the freedom to have this control creates a shared space - a greater version of the individualisation process of flowerboxes and parasols that dotted Corbusiers edifices.
I know very little about architecture, and a only a touch more about hip-hop, but I devoured this book as you do when you are confronted with new ideas that excite you. And yet because Cooke's is an academic architect, it is the opposite of a polemic, indeed I wonder if some of the positions on race within architecture could be more powerful. Nevertheless the point is made that architecture is still a very white job in the US (and I daresay everywhere else in the West) and some of the issues around sustainability and working with a community are ideas which have probably been given lip-service for years, are actually given a framework here. Its bold when it needs to be bold, discursive and funny when it needs that. It has all the hip-hop culture mea culpas whilst also dismissing them broadly as against the point (why criticise hip-hop architecture for the potential of misogynistic builds when classical architecture is RIGHT THERE!) There is even a playfulness in the way that all the musical quotes have been taken out due to rights costs, but the footnotes can tell you exactly where to hear them. And considering that b-boying is one of the four pillars of hip-hop, the fact he takes well over half the book before he drops the phrase "Dancing About Architecture" just goes to show how many original ideas are stuffed in here.
July 6, 2022
This is a MUST-READ for every open-minded person
I have never read a book on architecture that has taken the words right out of my mind like this. I consider myself a younger black, female millennial practicing architecture in America, this book gave me a renewed sense of hope in the future of a diverse and fulfilling profession. It’s a thought-provoking page-turner and is definitely relevant to the times we find ourselves in.
I have never read a book on architecture that has taken the words right out of my mind like this. I consider myself a younger black, female millennial practicing architecture in America, this book gave me a renewed sense of hope in the future of a diverse and fulfilling profession. It’s a thought-provoking page-turner and is definitely relevant to the times we find ourselves in.
December 23, 2024
This feels more like an open-ended exploration of various ideas rather than a definitive assertion of rules and theories, which I especially enjoyed and appreciated. It exposed me to new ways of thinking about space, and gave me starting points for artists/movements I want to research more
September 6, 2023
quite interesting, very well-researched and super comprehensive if a little dense for a layperson (me) lol - loved the major themes and powerful message throughout, found it perhaps a tad repetitive at times but overall learned a lot! (picked this one up at the CCA bookstore in montreal on a whim and was not disappointed, good stuff 😊)
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews