Are Architects Uncomfortable With Race?

Ann Lui, the arts-and-entertainment editor for The Cornell Daily Sun (and, apparently, an architecture student), has written a provocative op-ed article that is getting some attention in the blogosphere. She says that the architecture profession is uncomfortable with race, and she focuses on the decision to hire David Adjaye, the Ghanaian architect, to design the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“Before Adjaye’s win, some minority architects criticized the panel for the fact that most of the final firms were predominantly white” — a controversy, she writes, that “remained mostly in the blogosphere.”

“Why the silence? Why is it OK to talk about what age-old African architecture influenced the new Museum (‘Yoruban’ columns) but it’s not OK to talk about how David Adjaye’s experiences as a black Brit influence his work?… It has already become reasonably in vogue to hire Jewish American architects to design Holocaust museums and memorials; it is understood that their backgrounds and their experiences, as well as the stories and legacies of their families, inform these designers’ work. But still modern architectural discourse shies away from personal experience, from race and identity, in favor of weaker references to alien cultures — like water for chocolate, we draw the works of ancient builders instead of speaking about the stories that mean the most to us.”

We will reserve comment on the points of the essay and just put it out there for Buildings & Grounds readers to consider.