 | When Ivory Towers Were Black Subjects: ARCHITECTURE / History / Contemporary (1945-).; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies.; EDUCATION / Higher.; Urban policy; Civil rights movements; African Americans; City planning; Architecture; African American college students; African Ameri; Loosely framing this work as a case study on institutional transformation, Sutton, a professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Washington, examines the development and unraveling of an experimental education initiative at Columbia University's School of Architecture that arose out of the school's 1968 student rebellions, aimed at recruiting of minority students and transforming the school's curriculum into "humanistic, justice-oriented" education. Sutton leads the way through the "murky waters of [institutional] transformation" that occurred between 1968 and 1976, following an "evolutionary arc that begins with an unsettling effort to eliminate the exercise of authoritarian power on campus and in the community, and ends with an equally unsettling return to the status quo." Sutton follows the stories of 24 black and Puerto Rican students, including herself, who attended Columbia during this period. The detailed account of the intra- and interdepartmental quarrels often lapses into tiresome institutional history, and Sutton's excessive use of the second person hinders the immediacy inherent to her personal experiences and the historical events she lived through. The recollections of the alumni that infuse and inform the text, nevertheless, give the book value as an oral history. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. Sutton Sharon Egretta : Sharon Egretta Sutton is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and a fellow in the American Institute of Architects, a Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and an inductee into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.Sharon Egretta Sutton is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington and a fellow in the American Institute of Architects, a Distinguished Professor of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, and an inductee into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame. |
