Race, Space, and Architecture in the United States

In 1902, W.E.B. DuBois wrote these telling words in The Souls of Black Folk: “The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line,—the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea (9).” This semester we will take up DuBois’s claim and examine it in relationship to architecture in the United States. The focus will be largely on the twentieth century and buildings, landscapes, and places in cities although we will take some excursions to other places and periods in world history. By dissecting the race in concert with the constructed environment in the U.S. we will expose how Americans have used space to condition understandings of race, to reinforce racial and ethnic hierarchies, to perform identities, which are in flux, and to contest egregious and enduring inequalities. The goal is to understand that there is a dynamic rather than a static relationship between a physical place, its social make-up, and race as an ideal or imagined condition.