5:24

“Architecture, to me, in the U.S., means power. It’s tied to this idea of ownership and property. And so for me, black power is about how do I take that object of power and bring it into a space, and allow those who haven’t had that power to somehow transform it and use it in a way that empowers themselves.” — Walter J. Hood

On view now (through May 31, 2021) at the Museum of Modern Art is the extraordinary exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, “MoMA’s first exhibition to explore the relationship between architecture and the spaces of African American and African diaspora communities,” and featuring 11 newly commissioned works by architects, designers, and artists that “explore ways in which histories can be made visible and equity can be built.” In a unique new experience, the exhibition is accompanied by a new online course, Reimagining Blackness and Architecture, available on Coursera.

In this video, architect and Macarthur Fellow, Walter J. Hood discusses his project for the exhibition, Black Towers/Black Power for his hometown of Oakland, California, and how it is inspired by the Black Panthers movement, also founded in Oakland. This video is the first in MoMA’s video series on “Reimagining Blackness and Architecture” – be sure to catch the rest of the series here.

From the Museum of Modern Art:

How does race structure America’s cities? MoMA’s first exhibition to explore the relationship between architecture and the spaces of African American and African diaspora communities, Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America presents 11 newly commissioned works by architects, designers, and artists that explore ways in which histories can be made visible and equity can be built.

Centuries of disenfranchisement and race-based violence have led to a built environment that is not only compromised but also, as the critic Ta-Nehisi Coates contends, “argues against the truth of who you are.” These injustices are embedded in nearly every aspect of America’s design—an inheritance of segregated neighborhoods, compromised infrastructures, environmental toxins, and unequal access to financial and educational institutions.

Each project in the exhibition proposes an intervention in one of 10 cities: from the front porches of Miami and the bayous of New Orleans to the freeways of Oakland and Syracuse. Reconstructions examines the intersections of anti-Black racism and Blackness within urban spaces as sites of resistance and refusal, attempting to repair what it means to be American.

Reconstructions features works by Emanuel Admassu, Germane Barnes, Sekou Cooke, J. Yolande Daniels, Felecia Davis, Mario Gooden, Walter Hood, Olalekan Jeyifous, V. Mitch McEwen, and Amanda Williams, as well as new photographs and a film by artist David Hartt.