Hip-Hop Architecture

Sekou Cooke

"Despite increasing popular attention to issues of diversity and under-representation in architecture, power and control within the profession remain in the hands of white men. Of all the creative forms, architecture remains the least accessible to the inhabitants of deprived urban neighborhoods. The absence of a significant minority presence in the field reinforces the disconnect between designers and users. But things are changing. Hip-Hop Architecture explores the production of spaces, buildings, and urban environments that embody the creative energies in hip-hop. It is a newly expanding design philosophy which sees architecture as a distinct part of hip hop's cultural expression, and which uses hip-hop as a lens through which to provoke new architectural ideas. The book begins by outlining an architectural manifesto - the voice of the underrepresented, marginalized, and voiceless...