Grad - Davis

Abstract

This presentation examines the latent potential of Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter's architectural strategy of 'contextualism' for reconceptualizing the postwar integrations of American democracy, African American citizenship and urban space.  Rowe and Koetter's postmodernist manifesto Collage City (1978) was famous for employing a neoliberal definition of democracy as a metaphorical framework for urban design.  While their occasional reference to "American black politics" primarily served as an indication of the American character of democracy, it implicitly circumscribed an assimilationist image of black citizenship as the only "proper" response to participatory politics. (Collage City 116) Paradoxically, this conservative view opposed the author's rejection of all comprehensive architectural utopias, a point of view which presented their own approach as just one of several possible contextualisms.  Taking this paradox as an invitation, I will explore the formative role "improper" political attitudes had for regulating the minority architect's level of civic participation and citizenship in the late 1960s.