Le Corbusier and Josephine Baker aboard "Lutetia", 1929. Image Courtesy of FLC.
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.
Read MoreMichael Ford, Hip Hop Architecture lecture at University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.
Press Release
September 19, 2015 - The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) hosted Michael Ford during his Hip Hop Architecture lecture tour. Ford was a keynote speaker during the National Organization of Minority Architects Students (NOMAS) Symposium titled, Breaking The Glass Ceiling.
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Photo By: Nicholas Oran
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.
Read MorePharrell Williams discusses starchitecture with his guests Alex Gorlin, architect, and Daniel Arsham, artist. Gorlin then discusses his work with Common Ground, a non-profit that helps produce housing for homeless people that positively impacts the neighborhood. Arsham discusses the multi-dimensional nature of the different mediums in which he works.
Artst Talk, is a new take on the talk show format hosted by award winning producer, artist, designer, and businessman Pharrell Williams. Each episode features two special guests at different career stages to discuss their work, motivations, inspirations, and philosophies. In this episode, "Pharrell Williams discusses starchitecture with his guests Alex Gorlin, architect, and Daniel Arsham, artist. Gorlin then discusses his work with Common Ground, a non-profit that helps produce housing for homeless people that positively impacts the neighborhood.
Read MoreLe Corbusier’s Plan Voison, or City for Three Million, introduced a new order to embody what he thought were the spirit and needs of the Machine Age. His towers in a park sought to provide open space to the modern city, though in the end it destroyed the dense urban fabric necessary for vibrant urbanism. This Evolo Skyscraper competition submission by Chris Lee and Marcus Carter inverts the building-park relationship by pulling the park into the building thus creating a new typology of the skyscraper: Parks in a Tower.
Read More"...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 MoreOn Friday, February 13, 2015 I will team with Eryk "The Arch-E-Tect" Christian to deliver a lecture at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee's School of Architecture and Urban Planning titled, "LeCorbusier, The Forefather of Hip Hop?". The lecture focuses on the subconscious contributions of famed architects and urban planners to the environments which necessitated the birth of hip hop culture. This lecture will culminate with urban culture’s influence on the architectural profession through three interconnected realms: academic research, professional practice and media, ultimately introducing a new architectural style, one inspired by hip hop culture.
Read MoreDetroit's Brewster Projects - Photo by SJ Carey
Here is an essential criticism of LeCorbusier's visionary plan for the center of Paris which further links LeCorbuser to the origin of hip hop culture. In 1935 as The City of Detroit built the first federally funded housing development specifically for African Americans which was based on Le Corbusier's "Towers in The Park" scheme, a French architectural critic took to the magazine, L’Architecte to warn the world of the sociological impact the towers and its programming would have on it's inhabitants. In my opinion, this criticism of LeCorbusier's urban renewal schemes, serve as a prediction to the birth of hip hop culture.
Read MoreToday, Tiffany Brown, a former resident of Detroit's public housing who received her master’s degree in architecture from Lawrence Technological University is the new leading lady at the Brewsters nearly 80 years after the ribbon cutting by former first lady Elanor Roosevelt.. She represents Hamilton Anderson Associates as the construction administrator during demolition. How ironic is it that one who transcended the limitations of being born and raised in the public housing systems of Detroit is now the architectural representative coordinating the demolition process,
Read MoreGb Cortez' McGhee in the Detroit's Brewster Projects
During the preparations for my Hip Hop Inspired Architecture exhibit at the AIA Convention, I worked with professionals including hip hop artist, architects and photographers from all around the country to put on a successful show. The commonality amongst these professionals is the love of hip hop. I must say that their love for hip hop is deeper than the superficial infatuation with pop culture, these professionals, just as I, can easily profess "I AM HIP HOP"! Check out my post about GB Cortez.
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Michael Ford - Photo by Bradlee Bertram of BMB Graphics
On June 24 at the 2014 AIA National Convention, I had the privileged of exhibiting my research endeavors which are centered about the creation of an architecture inspired by hip hop culture. The research, which can be discovered by exploring the previous post on my blog, positions prominent architectural practitioners and historical figures such as Le Corbusier and former first Lady Eleanor Roosevelt at the helm of creating the architectural environments which prompted the birth of hip hop culture. The research then transitions to tell the story of the individuals born into hip hop culture and raised in those environments who are now architectural practitioners and creating a new style of socially conscious, technologically innovative architecture.
Read MoreArtist Stefan Zwicky created a replica of LeCorbusier's chair in a brutalists' fashion. Sleek stainless steel supports have been replaced with thick gauged structural rebar and the once comfortable leather seating now precast concrete. When I view this artist representation, I am immediately called to compare the philosophy behind it's interpretation to that of the architectural interpretations of LeCorbusier's Plan for Paris as it was implemented in the South Bronx in such a brutal way.
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The renderings of modified popular furniture pieces were created by me, from right to left you have, LeCorbusier's Arm Chair, Arne Jacobsen's Swan Chair, Charles and Ray Eames' Lounge Chair and the "Watch The Throne Chair" by BrandNU. Check out my "Making of The Throne" blog series to follow the design and fabrication of the Throne Chair.
Read MoreThis blog is about my first publication related to Hip Hop Inspired Architecture and Design, outside of my thesis at University of Detroit Mercy. The article details how LeCorbusier and his grand architectural visions inadvertently contributed to the creation of the environments which birthed Hip Hop. Thus deeming him, the first hip hop architect.
Morrisania Air Rights Houses, the Bronx.
(Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine)
"New York might be a city of neighborhoods, but Nychaland is a zone of its own. It is almost unthinkably huge: 334 “developments” spread from Staten Island’s Berry Houses to Throgs Neck in the Bronx—178,895 apartments in 2,602 buildings situated on an aggregate 2,486 acres, an area three times the size of Central Park. The population of Nychaland is usually cited at 400,000, but this number is universally regarded as too low, since most everyone knows someone living “off lease.” One NYCHA employee says that “600,000 is more like it.” That’s about 8 percent of New York—with 160,000 families on the waiting list. If Nychaland was a city unto itself, it would be the 21st most populous in the U.S., bigger than Boston or Seattle, twice the size of Cincinnati.
Indeed, perhaps Nychaland’s most compelling attribute is the fact that it exists at all. Across the U.S., public housing, condemned as a tax-draining vector of institutionalized mayhem and poverty, whipping-boy symbol of supposedly foolhardy urban policy, has largely disappeared. Chicago knocked down Cabrini-Green, St. Louis imploded Pruitt-Igoe, New Orleans flattened Lafitte after Katrina. Only in New York does public housing remain on a large scale, remnants of the days when the developments were considered a bulwark of social liberalism, a way to move up. "
As architects, designers and urban planners we create the spaces and environments which hosts the day to day interactions of every living being which ultimately nurtures the development of culture. Through a series of my blog posts, you can see how architects and planners subconsciously contributed to the environments which unintentionally created the socially, economically, politically and physically restrictive spaces which resulted in the birth of the hip hop nation. A culture which rebels against social norms and social structure, a culture which results from economical, social and political deprivations.
In the portion of the video from a PBS documentary below, one of the first housing projects in New York city is displayed through the lens of utopia if you ask me. The commercial which promotes the high density housing units is laughable today, knowing what these "housing projects" became once this grand scheme disseminated across the inner cities of America. This was Robert Moses' attempt at solving housing issues in the Bronx as he shuffled residents while as he planned and built the Cross Bronx Expressway. A grand idea, that fizzled and resulted in becoming some of the toughest places to sustain life throughout the country, "The Projects". Fast forward to the 2:58 mark of the video for the commercial.
If you want to view the entire series "The World That Robert Moses Built" by PBS.org. Click Here
Take a look at a previous blog post to understand how LeCorbusier's vision was implemented by Robert Moses in the South Bronx.
Left - Kanye West Right - LeCorbusier
I must admit that this blog post has me very excited, for the past 10 years I have been creating a body of research based on the architecture of LeCorbusier and its unintended social implications and subsequent environmental backdrop in Hip Hop. Click here for Previous Post. Hearing that Kanye West's Yezus was inspired by LeCorubiser now validates my research and efforts which include the linkage of Corbu to Hip Hop and ultimately aims to create a Hip Hop Inspired Architecture. Since the culture itself has been heavily influenced by architecture, its only right that the culture now shall heavily influence architecture.
Yeezus - Album Cover
In an interview with The New York Times, Kanye West admitted that the new sound on "Yeezus" came from somewhere none of us were expecting. "Architecture — you know, this one Corbusier lamp was like, my greatest inspiration," he claimed.
Le Corbusier is one of the founders of modern architecture. Working in the 1930s, the French architect rejected the architectural styles before him. In fact, he rejected style entirely in favor of minimal and essential structures. He believed in function above all, and his perfectly-proportioned creations were ideal structures for the modern citizen. "Like I say, I’m a minimalist in a rapper’s body," Kanye told the NY Times, which explains his attraction to Le Corbusier's radical designs.
Last week, MoMA opened their show on the influential architect, "Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes." It seems that Le Corbusier is having a moment in the cultural spotlight. We've put together a list of why Le Corbusier is just as awesome as Kanye says he is. Meet the inspiration behind "Yeezus."
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