Review article: architecture denied

Author: Darell Wayne Fields

Source: Social Identities, Volume 10, Number 4, 2004 , pp. 549-557(9)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

Published in 1998, blank____ Architecture, apartheid and after, represents a seminal collection of essays anticipating the fundamental cultural transformation of South Africa in architectural terms. A close reading of the compilation, however, reveals an unconscious redeployment of a representational scheme (read: apartheid) by the text's editors preventing their idea of intertextual 'freedom' between architecture and blackness. 'Architecture Denied' is a case study of the aforementioned text fostering two simultaneous ideas: First, it demonstrates that architectural codes and representational systems can be used as innovative forms of critique to unpack and disclose seemingly benign architectural/ organisational strategies. Second, the facility to disclose these systems in a racial context reveals that architecture, when embraced by blackness (or vice versa), represents a formidable system of resistance and transformation.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1350463042000258962

Affiliations: 1: Harvard Graduate School of Design

Publication date: 2004-01-01

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