The following audio and related transcript is from my lecture, Hip Hop Inspired Architecture, at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design on April 8, 2015. During the lecture I presented my project, Urban Renewal vs Urban Reality, which juxtaposes a series of hip hop music videos and architecture documentaries exhibiting The Golden Era of Hip Hop as a post occupancy report for inner city dwellers' inhabitance of modernists' visions.
Ford: "As many of these modernist developments across America face demolition (high density, low income housing superblocks), it is now time for us, the hip hop architects, to investigate the implications of the architecture through our hip hop lens. For example, we can use the golden era hip hop MC's lyrics as post occupancy reports of urban America's inhabitance of modernists' visions. This is a study I titled, "Urban Reality vs Urban Renewal".
For example, we can use the golden era hip hop MC’s lyrics as post occupancy reports of urban America’s inhabitance of modernists’ visions. This is a study I titled Urban Reality vs Urban Renewal.
The following video is from the PBS Documentary exploring the career of Robert Moses. "American Experience: The World that Moses Built". In this video, the narrator, describes one of Robert Moses’ solutions to slum housing and overcrowding, Stivenson Town. Take a listen to the description of the architecture, landscape and the predicted social implications of the design."
Promotional Film for Stivenson Town from the PBS documentary, "American Experience: The World That Moses Built".
Ford: "That is Utopia, it’s what Robert Moses thought he was bringing to the inner city as well, as he implemented this idea of slum clearance during the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway.
If we look at Hip Hop lyrics, such as Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message”, which is the most popular hip hop song of all time, it tells a completely different story about the execution of this architecture coupled with the economic, political and social deprivations instituted within its' walls in the inner city."
From 1982 Album: "The Message"
Grandmaster Flash and his group the Furious Five were hip-hop's greatest innovators, transcending the genre's party-music origins to explore the full scope of its lyrical and sonic horizons.
Ford: "Grandmaster Flash describes a totally different environment that Robert Moses thought he was providing. Again, I ask, can we use hip hop lyrics as a post occupancy report of the implementation of modernists’ visions in the inner city?"
To download the entire transcript from the "Hip Hop Architecture" lecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, on May 08, 2015 click the link below.