The Hip Hop Architecture Camp™ Music Video for "Push, Slide, Pause" By: The Hip Hop Architecture Camp Camp Location: Huston - Tillotson University Song Produced by: Syx Synce (http://notesfornotes.org/austin/) website: www.hiphoparchitecture.com The Hip Hop Architecture Camp™ is a one week intensive experience, designed to introduce under represented youth to architecture, urban planning, creative place making and economic development through the lens of hip hop culture.
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Youths fly a kite in a street bordered with firegutted buildings in the South Bronx section of New York City in June, 1977. The Carter Administration has agreed to revive urban renewal projects in an effort to revive the neighborhood. | AP Images
The hip-hop architect on how music and the environment can influence one another
Thanks to Curbed for the article.
"From its early roots in the Bronx to its current status as a worldwide cultural movement, hip-hop has never lost its street-level sensibility. When writing songs, rappers and lyricists trade in the currency of credibility, constantly dropping the names of street corners, city neighborhoods, even specific buildings and housing projects to connect listeners with the urban environment.
Hip-hop is often about place. And, according to Ford, it is place—often poorly designed, underfunded, and cut off from the rest of the city through bad urban planning and structural racism—that birthed the genre. Ford, who has been tapped to design the forthcoming Universal Hip-Hop Museum in the Bronx, has helped coin the term “hip-hop architecture,” popularizing the concept as a lens for looking at the intersections of culture and the built environment.
But it’s not just about looking back at the ways urban planning and housing policy created the environment for new forms of music; it’s how the ethics and ethos of hip-hop can help inspire new solutions for designing our cities."
Getty Images / Chris Hondros
How Bad Urban Planning Led to The Birth Of A Billion Doallar Genre
"Life in the so-called inner city has always been a major theme in hip-hop. From the desolate state of the Bronx Projects described in Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” to the poor conditions in parts of Brooklyn and Queens recounted by artists like Jay Z, Biggie, and Nas, rappers have used their music to offer a glimpse into urban spaces across the United States. For decades, they’ve used verses and hooks to allude to the relationship between hip-hop and architecture — overcrowded, dilapidated towers have been the backdrop of the genre since its inception. But that relationship is more significant than it appears to be, says designer Mike Ford, whose pioneering research in the field of hip-hop-inspired architecture has earned him a fitting sobriquet: The Hip-Hop Architect. "
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SXSW Eco Session Highlight: Hip Hop Architecture + the Just City
This session will discuss the cultural and colloquial implications of architecture in the built environment through the lens of Hip Hop and Design Justice. Focusing on the intersection of theory and practice, we will explore hip hop as a revolutionary approach to understanding, conceiving, and generating architecture for a just city. Showing these processes in action, we will share the unique, cross disciplinary design process for the Universal Hip Hop Museum.
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Le Corbusier and Josephine Baker aboard "Lutetia", 1929. Image Courtesy of FLC.
Le Corbusier and Race Relations: 10 Things Architecture School Didn't Teach You About Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier's musings on black culture, especially music, is one of the lesser known aspects of his life. Here is a list of ten things about Le Cobusier and Black Culture that you probably never learned while in architecture school.
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Photo By: Nicholas Oran
Hip Hop As Modernism's Post Occupancy Report:Part 2
Hip Hop has established itself as a gravitas culture that crosses borders of race, ethnicity, class, religion and professions. Members of the hip hop generation carry the residue of the culture into all spaces they inhabit and their individual works are seasoned with its’ flavor. As professionals continue to argue the academic validity of hip hop and disseminate the social significance of rap, it is time architectural professionals learn the benefit the culture provides to its’ practitioners.
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Photo By: Adidas Big Sean at Detroit Cass Tech
Big Sean Builds Music Studio at Cass Tech High School in Detroit
Rapper Big Sean unveiled a new music studio at his alma mater, Cass Technical High School in Detroit Michigan. Cass Tech is the alma mater of many of Detroit's black architects and designers, including myself and Rainy Hamilton Jr. Cass Tech is recognized as one the best high schools in the nation and is one of the only Detroit Public Schools which requires students to take admissions test and requires a minimum grade point average for enrolled students. Big Sean graduated from CT with a 3.7 gpa and despite many scholarship offers, he choose to follow his true dream, entertainment.
Read MoreQuote Of The Day - Kanye West
"...you know, this one [Le]Corbusier lamp was like, my greatest inspiration. I lived in Paris in this loft space and recorded in my living room, and it just had the worst acoustics possible, but also the songs had to be super simple, because if you turned up some complicated sound and a track with too much bass, it’s not going to work in that space. This is earlier this year. I would go to museums and just like, the Louvre would have a furniture exhibit, and I visited it like, five times, even privately. And I would go see actual Corbusier homes in real life and just talk about, you know, why did they design it? They did like, the biggest glass panes that had ever been done. Like I say, I’m a minimalist in a rapper’s body. It’s cool to bring all those vibes and then eventually come back to Rick [Rubin], because I would always think about Def Jam." - Kanye West
Read MoreThe Bronx Recognized As “Place of Invention” At Upcoming Smithsonian Exhibit
It’s not often that the Bronx is mentioned in the same breath as Hollywood and Silicon Valley. But an exhibit being planned at the Smithsonian’s Lemelson Center in Washington, D.C. will pay homage to these areas and others as “hot spots” of innovation
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Photo: Maya Robinson and Photo by Getty
How Hip Hop Failed Black America
Quest Love's thought proving series examining How Hip Hop Has Failed Black America written for Vulture, make us hip hoppas think critically about the gravitas nature of our culture. Although Quest questions the legitimacy of hip hop architecture, I am happy to know that he is aware of the architectural investigation. I would love to discuss with him, how the hip hop generation is incorporating our culture into the architectural profession.
Read MoreErik Howard at The Alley Project (TAP). Photo By: Marvin Shaouni
Erik Howard brings the corner and the community together in unlikely ways through The Alley Project
Detroit native, Erik Howard, explains how The Alley Project (T.A.P.) came to be what it is today, in Southwest Detroit. Merging the artistry of graffiti and street arts with the practice of architecture and social justice, Howard and his organization, Young Nation, has provided more than just an artist outlet for Detroit youth, he has provided them with a structure which helps develop their craft and achieve their dreams.
Read MoreBuppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture Photo by: BMB Graphics
Hip Hop Book of the Week - Nelson George's, "Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos"
I'm sure you've heard people say you must always "cite" your sources, well, I'm taking it one step further as I "sight" my sources during this continuous series titled, "Hip Hop Book of the Week". This impromptu shot was taken with a group of daring, unknown skateboarders. The guy jumping overhead actually wanted to read the book as he made the jump, my conscious would not let him do it. Side note...I miss my high top fade!
Read MoreBrewster Housing during demolition in Detroit, Michigan. Photo by GB Cortez McGhee
What if....Please Share Your Comments
After each Hip Hop Inspired Architecture lecture, I'm always faced with the same question from attendees after they learn how the projects necessitated the creation of hip hop.
Read More"The Hip Hop Wars" by Tricia Rose - Photo by BMR Photography and Michael Ford
Hip Hop Book of The Week - The Hip Hop Wars by Tricia Rose
Pharrell Williams Resource Center / Oppenheim Architecture + Design
We all know Pharrell Williams is much more than a musical genius he has deep interest in design as well. Mr. Williams has launched clothing lines, furniture lines and has a respectable architectural portfolio under his belt as well. The images below are from the PWRC(Pharrell Williams Resource Center) designed by Oppenheim and Pharrell.
Read More"Holy Hip Hop" Paintings
Icons from the world of hip-hop music were the subject of an exhibition at MOCAD in Detroit, MI. Holy Hip-Hop! New Paintings by Alex Melamid were on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit from February 8 through April 20, 2008. I was able to visit this exhibit back when I was living in Detroit and I must say, I loved the work. The portraits had a Mone Lisa feel to them because of the medium used and the lighting quality displayed in the pieces, especially the 50 Cent piece.
Read MoreJay Z as Guest Lecturer? - Schooling Students in Fine Arts and Architecture
Jay Z's memoir "Decoded" unveiled the mysterious double entendres and artistic references within his lyrics in a very sophisticated manner which open the eyes to various academics around the nation to the power and artistic genius behind rap lyrics. One of those academics is Dr. Shawn Peters at University of Wisconsin Madison. For the past two decades the hip hop generation has been unofficially led by Sean Carter, not only the pursuit of lyrical mastery, but the manner in which the constituents conduct themselves as businessmen, fashion and the endeavors we care to venture down and ultimately the cultural relevancy of elements to hip hop. As Jay Z continues to disseminate hip hop's fifth element, "knowledge", his lyrical assault on our ears is heavily saturated with knowledge for those who dare decipher the stories of his life experiences delivered through his music.
As Part II of my presentation titled "Hip Hop Inspired Architecture and Design" at University of Wisconsin Madison, I wanted to awaken the students senses to the content behind Jay Z's "Picasso Baby". Similar to his other songs, its not hard for the students to recite the lyrics, but far too many have limited knowledge about the topics being described in those lyrics. I took the students on a journey that I hope they will never forget.
Read MoreQuick Vid - Pariis Noel - Detroit Hip Hop
Take a listen to my cousin, Pariis Noel of 4/N ExChange an up and coming rapper in Detroit, as he describes the various elements which influence his music.
Ice Cube Interview - Becoming an Architect as BackUp Plan
I've blogged about Ice Cube graduating from technical college during the early days of NWA to become an architectural draftsman, but not until now have I seen an interview where he actually discusses the topic. Take a look at the short clip and enjoy.
Read MoreBreakdancing Meets Architecture - Part I
Can the structural stability of break dancers be translated to the architectural profession a new style of architecture?
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