Kappe Library Reading List Embraces Visions of Black Utopia, Rebellion, and Building Communities
In honor of February being Black History Month, this installment of the Kappe Library reading list features volumes centering on themes ranging from the utopian ideals reflected in the history of Black Nationalism, an exploration of urban architecture and performance which considers the complexity of Black masculinity using Chicago as a case study, a timeline of new Black cinema in Los Angeles, and how the deconstruction of the middle class in postwar America has contributed to pervasive and lasting racial inequalities in the contemporary housing market.
Each quarter, SCI-Arc releases a reading list, curated by the Kappe Library's Manager Kevin McMahon and Librarian Stefanie Crump, representing a cohesive, interdisciplinary collection of books featuring pertinent themes and authors. The reading lists reflect the overall mission of the Kappe Library to build its collection with representation and inclusivity in mind, but also incongruity, specificity, and relevance to the discourses taking place at SCI-Arc.
Complete reading list below.
Little White Houses: How the Postwar Home Constructed Race in America, Dianne Harris (2012)
Dianne Harris examines how postwar media representations associated the ordinary single-family house with middle-class whites to the exclusion of others, creating a powerful and invidious cultural iconography that continues to resonate today. Richly detailed and illustrated, Little White Houses adds a new dimension to our understanding of race in America and the inequalities that persist in the U.S. housing market.
The Kappe Library also carries architecture and design-related Ebooks. They are available to current SCI-Arc students, faculty and staff, through the Kappe Library home page. Be sure to access EzProxy first. Use your MySCI-Arc name and password.
Spatializing Blackness : Architectures of Confinement and Black Masculinity in Chicago / Rashad Shabazz.
University of Illinois Press, 2015.
This project traces how architectures of confinement, policing, surveillance, migration, and mass incarceration orient and imbue Black male bodies and gender performance with the stigmata of carceral punishment. As the northern city with the largest 20th century influx of southern Blacks, Chicago provides a powerful case study to understand how urban planning, architecture, crowded living quarters, surveillance, and policing function to regulate Black men's bodies. Rashad Shabazz makes an important contribution to the growing work on Black (bodily) geographies and the complex entanglements between the emergence of the US prison regime (and prison industrial complex) and the densely historical complexities of Black subjectivity formation. By first illustrating how Black men's geographies have been delineated throughout the twentieth century in Black Chicago in spaces such as interracial sex districts, cramped kitchenettes, segregated house project, and prisons, Shabazz is then able to analyze and generalize the impact this mapping has had on the formation of Black masculinity, Black cultural production, and Black men's health in Black spaces beyond Chicago. Shabazz employs various methods (history, sociology, and literary criticism), theories (poststructuralism and critical theory), and disciplines (human geography, critical race studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and epidemiology) to highlight the importance of the racialization of space, the role of containment in subordinating Black people, the politics of mobility under conditions of 'freedom, ' and to ultimately discuss how Black men resist spacial containment.
Black Utopia : The History of an Idea from Black Nationalism to Afrofuturism / Alex Zamalin. Columbia University Press, 2019.
Within the history of African American struggle against racist oppression that often verges on dystopia, a hidden tradition has depicted a transfigured world. Daring to speculate on a future beyond white supremacy, black utopian artists and thinkers offer powerful visions of ways of being that are built on radical concepts of justice and freedom. They imagine a new black citizen who would inhabit a world that soars above all existing notions of the possible. In Black Utopia, Alex Zamalin offers a groundbreaking examination of African American visions of social transformation and their counterutopian counterparts. Considering figures associated with racial separatism, postracialism, anticolonialism, Pan-Africanism, and Afrofuturism, he argues that the black utopian tradition continues to challenge American political thought and culture. Black Utopia spans black nationalist visions of an ideal Africa, the fiction of W.E.B. Du Bois, and Sun Ra's cosmic mythology of alien abduction. Zamalin casts Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler as political theorists and reflects on the antiutopian challenges of George S. Schuyler and Richard Wright. Their thought proves that utopianism, rather than being politically immature or dangerous, can invigorate political imagination. Both an inspiring intellectual history and a critique of present power relations, this book suggests that, with democracy under siege across the globe, the black utopian tradition may be our best hope for combating injustice.
L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema, edited by Allyson Nadia Field, Jan-Christopher Horak, and Jacqueline Najuma Stewart. (2015)
L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema is the first book dedicated to the films and filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion, a group of African and African American independent film and video artists that formed at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the 1970s and 1980s. The group--including Charles Burnett, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, Billy Woodberry, Jamaa Fanaka, and Zeinabu irene Davis—shared a desire to create alternatives to the dominant modes of narrative, style, and practice in American cinema, works that reflected the full complexity of Black experiences. This landmark collection of essays and oral histories examines the creative output of the L.A. Rebellion, contextualizing the group's film practices and offering sustained analyses of the wide range of works, with particular attention to newly discovered films and lesser-known filmmakers. Based on extensive archival work and preservation, this collection includes a complete filmography of the movement, over 100 illustrations (most of which are previously unpublished), and a bibliography of primary and secondary materials. This is an indispensible sourcebook for scholars and enthusiasts, establishing the key role played by the L.A. Rebellion within the histories of cinema, Black visual culture, and postwar art in Los Angeles.
The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race, Adrienne Brown (2017)
With the development of the first skyscrapers in the 1880s, urban built environments could expand vertically as well as horizontally. Tall buildings emerged in growing cities to house and manage the large and racially diverse populations of migrants and immigrants flocking to their centers following Reconstruction. Beginning with Chicago's early 10-story towers and concluding with the 1931 erection of the 102-story Empire State Building, Adrienne Brown's The Black Skyscraper provides a detailed account of how scale and proximity shape our understanding of race.
African American Architects : Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities, Melvin L. Mitchell., (2019)
Melvin Mitchell believes that the 2016 opening of the NMAAHC signals either a black architect renaissance or the demise of the black architect-practitioner corps in the U.S. by 2040 if not earlier...along with the demise of Black America's cultural, political, and spatial beachheads in America's big cities.
He argues in this book that America's perennial housing crisis - most acutely manifested in Black America's accelerating displacement from America's cities - must be countered by a new progressive 21st century movement that re-invents the revolutionary construction-based architecture modus operandi deployed 100 years ago by Booker T. Washington. Mitchell believes that Washington completed the build-out of the Tuskegee Institute campus as a counter to America's building of the "White City" aka the 1893 Chicago World's Fair-Columbian Exposition 600 miles to the north in Chicago, Illinois.
Resources on African-American Architects/Designers/Urbanists in Southern California
Architects, Designers, Urbanists
- Barragan, Bianca, “Mapped: 20 places in LA where black architects left their mark,” la.curbed.com, February 28, 2020, https://la.curbed.com/maps/los-angeles-black-architects-projects-map
- Christian, Elizabeth, “Field overcrowded, discriminatory?: architects facing many professional challenges,” Los Angeles Times, November 27, 1983, p. J1
- Minorities in architecture panel (January 28, 1976), with Arthur Silvers (DMJM) & Jack W. Haywood, https://youtu.be/U4md6R8l1yY
- Morris, Jason E., Nov. 2016, for NOMA & AIA/LA, “A map of featured Los Angeles buildings by African American architects,” https://www.aialosangeles.org/... holds ‘dig-in’ for community arts center,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1967, p. F3 (PDF)
Individuals + Firms
Francis + Anderson (Christopher Francis, Gladstone “Andy” Anderson)
- Michaud, Anne, “Architects have designs on public contracts: the partners of Orange-based Francis + Anderson want to merge their different skills for optimum impact. They hope minority incentives will open doors.” Los Angeles Times, January 18, 1993, p. OCD4 (PDF)
Freelon, Phil (1953-2019)
- Petrunia, Paul, et al., “Remembering Phil Freelon ; a full transcript from our podcast,” Archinect, July 12, 2019
- Zacks Stephen, “Beyond black + white: Philip Freelon built his practice from the ground up - and now he’s the go-to architect for African-American cultural commissions,” Metropolis, March 2006.
Garrott, James H. (1897-1991)
- Lopez, Robert J., “A farewell to Firestone : Sheriff’s station, the first in the country to put Black deputies in patrol cars, is set to close after 35 years,” Los Angeles Times, December 19, 1993, p. H14. (PDF)
- “Progress – ground will be broken for Westchester City Hall …” Los Angeles Times, March 15, 1959, p. CS6 (James H. Garrott Jr. & Gregory Ain, PDF)
Haywood, Jack W.
- “Designers predict decoration trends,” Los Angeles Times, October 13, 1963, p. GBA9 (PDF)
- “First plans for Oakwood Center expansion passed,” Los Angeles Times, March 27, 1975, p. WS5 (PDF)
Henry, Mira
- Current interests (with Mathew Au)
- Duel + Duet Ellie Abrons & Mira Henry (September 23, 2016)
Jenkins, Carey K. (?-1987)
- Carey K. Jenkins in the A. Quincy Jones papers, 1942-1979, UCLA Special Collections. Includes 21 job slides. OAC Finding Aid.
- “Dedication rites held for seniors’ home,” Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1965, p. N8 (PDF)
- “New branch – Construction is under way on a $300,000 Bank of America branch at Washington Blvd. and 12th St,” Los Angeles Times, September 14, 1969, p. I17 (currently Truffle Brothers deli, PDF)
Kennard, Robert A. (1921?-1995)
- De Wolfe, Evelyn, “Black architect, his struggle behind him, now role model / Kennard’s firm celebrates 30th anniversary,” Los Angeles Times, November 15, 1987, p. H1 (PDF)
- Oliver, Myrna, “R. A. Kennard ; prominent Black architect [Obituary],” Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1995, p. WVA12 (PDF)
- Pastier, John, et al, “Project: a Grand Avenue,” Architecture and Urbanism, August 1981, p.19-58 (Design for redevelopment of L.A.’s Bunker Hill neighborhood. Design team lead by Robert F. Maguire, and included Kennard’s KDG, Gehry and Kruger, Cesar Pelli & Associates, amongst other celebrated firms.)
- Whiteson, Leon, “Designs on the future : through the legacy left by her father, Gail Kennard Madyun hopes to build a better L.A. for the next generation,” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1996, p. E1 (PDF)
- Robinson, Jerome Anthony, “An odyssey in B-flat: rediscovering the life and times of master architect Robert A. Kennard,” Master of Heritage Conservation thesis, USC, 2018
- Cubé, Caroline, “Processing the papers of Architect Robert Kennard in the CFPRT,” UCLA Library special collections blog, July 23, 2019
- “Kennard (Robert A.) papers,” UCLA Library special collections, via Online Archive of California, (Finding aid)
- “Handy helpers,” Los Angeles Times, October 14, 1962, p. A58 (PDF)
- “New temple – Architect Robert Kennard, left, and Rabbi Herschel Lymon examine model of new Temple Akiba …,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1963, p. WS5 (PDF)
Pride, Michaele (1956- )
- Spiller, Jane, “Leimert Park : bolstering a ‘fragile’ place,” Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1995, p. B7 (PDF)
- Doherty, Jake, “St. Elmo Village plans renovation,” Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1993, p. H8 (PDF)
- Betsky, Aaron, “Building with heart,” Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1993, p. SM36 (PDF)
- Michaele Pride-Wells: Practice what you preach (January 23, 2008)
- The Next L. A.: John Kaliski, Michaele Pride-Wells, et al. (February 10, 1994)
Proby, Vincent (1928-1987)
- Champlin, Charles, “Afro-Am : Museum of Black Culture,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1983, p. E1 (PDF)
Raw Architecture (Roland A. Wiley, R. Steven Lewis, Steven Lott)
- Keegan, Edward, “The Mentor: R. Steven Lewis / Reversing the low number of minority architects, says NOMA's new president, requires addressing future generations through nationwide community efforts and institutional partnerships.,” Architect magazine, November 11, 2008
- Whiteson, Leon, “Black architects try the RAW approach,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1990, p. OCE4 (PDF)
Silcott, James E.
- “The James E. Silcott Endowed Chair,” Howard University
- Shiver, Jube, “Architect’s return to job testy, brief,” Los Angeles Times, March 16, 1984, p. D1 (PDF)
- Vollmer, Ted, “Silcott accepts county’s $1-million settlement,” Los Angeles Times, November 1, 1984, p. B29 (PDF)
Sklarek, Norma Merrick (1926-2012)
- Liddick, Betty, “At ease under hard hat, dryer,” Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1972, p. G1 (PDF)
- “20 Californians elected fellows of AIA / First woman in L.A. chapter’s history included,” Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1980, p. I13 (PDF)
- “A guide to the Norma Merrick Sklarek biographical material,” Special Collections, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
- “Research notes on Norma Merrick Sklarek,” Sara Holmes Boutelle Papers, MS141, Box 14, Folder 18, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Special Collections, finding aid via Online Archive of California.
- Photos, correspondence, clippings and publications featuring Sklarek, 11 items total, held by the National Museum of African American History & Culture.
Slaughter
- Stephen Slaughter: From Phat to Watts (March 26, 2010)
Spencer, William K.
- Cross, Pat, “All-Black building team follows road of determination to success,” June 10, 1973, p. F27 (PDF)
- The Urban Workshop (Ed Goff, Eugene Brooks)
- Seidenbaum, Art, “Watts Power – a resource now just going to waste,” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1968, p. A5 (PDF)
- “Workshop in Watts,” Architectural Forum, January/February 1969 (on “The Urban Workshop … the only group of black architects and planners in the Greater Watts riot area …” including Ed Goff, Eugene Brooks)
Williams, Paul R. (1894-1980)
- “Negro is nominated for planning body,” Los Angeles Times, July 2, 1921, p. II10 (PDF)
- Braun, Stephen, “Threat to old building meets wave of opposition,” Los Angeles Times, March 4, 1984, p. WS1 (PRW’s Sunset Plaza: “Louis Angelikis, a former professor of architecture at USC who had worked on plans to develop condominiums at the Sunset Plaza site, told a hearing of the Cultural Heritage Board in June, 1980, that Paul Williams’ name did not appear in any architectural history books …” (PDF)
- "Finding Aid for the Paul Revere Williams drawings, circa 1935-circa 1950," UC Santa Barbara: Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design and Architecture Museum, via Online Archive of California
- Hudson, Karen E. & Benny Chan, Paul R. Williams : classic Hollywood style, Rizzoli, NA737.W527H847 2012
- Hudson, Karen E. & David Gebhard, Paul R. Williams, architect : a legacy of style, Rizzoli, NA737.W527H84 2000
- Mays, Vernon, “Mr. Williams,” Architect, September 2010, p.74-79
- Paul R. Williams : a collection of house plans, Hennessey & Ingalls, NA737.W527A4 2006
- The Paul Revere Williams Project
Communities
- Cheng, Wendy, The Changs next door to the Díazes : remapping race in suburban California, University of Minnesota Press, 2013, (Ebook available via Proquest Ebook Central
- De Lara, Juan, Inland shift: race, space, and capitol in inland Southern California, University of California Press, HC107.C22L37 2018
- Johnson, Gaye Theresa, Spaces of conflict, sounds of solidarity : music, race, and spatial entitlement in Los Angeles, University of California Press, F869.L89A2533 2013
- Kun, Josh & Laura Pulido, Black and Brown in Los Angeles : beyond conflict and coalition, University of California Press, 2013 (Ebook available via Proquest Ebook Central
- Rosas, Abigail, South Central is home : race the the power of community investment in Los Angeles, Stanford University Press, F869.L86S687 2019
Histories
- Allmendinger, Blake, Imagining the African American West, University of Nebraska Press, 2005
- Davis, Mike and Jon Wiener, Set the night on fire : L.A. in the sixties, Verso, F869.L857 2020eb
- Flamming, Douglas, Bound for freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America, University of California Press, 2004
- Graaf, Lawrence B. et al., Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California, University of Washington Press, 2001 (Ebook available via Proquest Ebook Central
- Home, Gerald, Fire this time : the Watts uprising and the 1960s, Da Capo Press, F869.L89N344 1997
- Jefferson, Alison Rose, “African American leisure space in Santa Monica: the beach sometimes known as the Inkwell, 1900s-1960s,” Southern California Quarterly, #2, 2009, p. 155-189
- Sidesk Josh, L. A. City limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the present, University of California Press, 2004
- Torres-Rouff, David Samuel, Before L.A. : race, space, and municipal power in Los Angeles, 1781-1894, Yale University Press. F869.L857 T67 2013
- Viehe, Fred W., “The Social-spatial distribution in the Black Gold suburbs of Los Angeles, 1900-1930,” Southern California Quarterly, Spring 1991, p.33-54
- Watts Writers Workshop, From the ashes : voices of Watts, New American Library, PS508.N3 W33 1967
Visual Arts, Movies, Music
- Al-Khudhairi, Wassan, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Aperture, TR647.S46 2020
- Auping, Michael, Mark Bradford: end papers, Prestel, N6537.B6813A4 2020
- Bryant, Clora (Editor), Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles, University of California, ML3508.8 .L7 C46 1998
- Charles Gaines: Palm Trees and Other Works, Hauser & Wirth, N6537.G342A4 2019
- Eliel, Carol S., Betye Saar: Call and Response, Prestel, N6537.S2A4 2019
- Fire in the Library: George Evans & John Otterbridge (November 16, 1995) Part 1 / Part 2
- Gaines, Charles, Kerry James Marshall, Phaidon, ND237.M24623A4 2020
- Hoskyns, Barney, Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes, and the Sound of Los Angeles, St. Martin’s Press, ML3477.8.L67H67 1996
- Jones, Kellie, Now dig this!: Art & Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980, Prestel, N6538.N5J666 2011
- Jones, Kellie, South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s, Duke University Press, N6538.N5J668 2017
- Hankins, Evelyn C. & Stéphane Aquin, Mark Bradford: Pickett’s Charge, Yale University Press, N6537.B6813A4 2018
- L.A. Rebellion (UCLA Film & Television Archive) on YouTube (Films, news footage, interviews)
- Mainetti, Mario, Betye Saar: Uneasy Dancer, Fondazione Prada, N6537.S2A4 2016
- Noah Purifoy: High Desert Assemblage Artist, Steidl Publishers, N6537.P85A4 2015
- Sirmans, Franklin, et al., Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada, LACMA, N6537.P85A4 2015
- The Story of L.A. Rebellion (UCLA Film & Television Archive)
Additional Bibliographies + Reading Lists
- Association of Architecture School Librarians, “Resources: racial justice and the built environment” (GoogleDoc)
- Kappe Library, “Neighborhoods” in “Architectures of Southern California”
- Kappe Library, “Neighborhoods” in “Los Angeles histories & cultures”
- Kappe Library, “Race & ethnicity in architectural discourse & practice”
- Kappe Library, “Race and diversity in education” in “Architectural education”
- Kappe Library, Recommended resources on African American architects, builders, communities, and related issues, SCI-Arc Kappe Library Guide
Exhibitions
- The Los Angeles project for MOMA’s “Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America” (February 20 through May 31, 2021)
More African American Architects in Los Angeles:
- Anne-Marie Armstrong, AIA / AAmp Studio
- Arthur Silvers / DMJM
- Barbara H. Bouza, FAIA, LEED AP, EDAC / Gensler
- Christopher D. Francis, AIA / Logos Architecture/Christopher Francis Architecture
- Douglas Davis, AIA & Rick Dumas, RA / AE3 Partners
- Drake Dillard, AIA, NOMAC / RBB Architects
- Elliot S. Barker, RA, LEED AP, NOMA / BASE
- Gabrielle Bullock, FAIA, NOMA, LEED AP / Perkins + Will/Pei Partnership Architects
- George Snead, AIA
- Gregory K. Williams, RA / MASS Architecture & Design
- Harold L. Wiliams, FAIA, NOMAC
- John D. Williams, AIA
- Leopold Ray-Lynch, AIA
- Michael H. Anderson, RA, NOMA / BASE
- Rhoden D. Skyles II, AIA / Nadel Architects
- Valery Augustin, AIA / DNA Architecture & Design
The Kappe Library also carries architecture and design-related Ebooks. They are available to current SCI-Arc students, faculty and staff, through the Kappe Library home page. Be sure to access EzProxy first. Use your MySCI-Arc name and password.