Architecture Black Building?
posted by December 8 at 11:27 AMon
Under construction in Pittsburgh is The August Wilson Center for African American Culture, which when completed will look like this:
Designed by Perkins+Will, a Chicago-based firm, the two-story steel and aluminum building is not, as you can see, very interesting. Nor is it aesthetically black American. What makes this structure black? Nothing. But then again, can there be such a thing as black American architecture in the way there is, say, Japanese architecture? Those who believe such a distinction is possible will certainly turn to black American music to prove that a line can be drawn between black aesthetic practices and those derived from Japan or Europe. But is there an aesthetic correspondence between European music and architecture (something Goethe suggested)? Others have gone as far as to compare the scholastic summa with gothic architecture. But that comparison has more to do with complexity than with actual style. Reading a summa does not feel like walking through a cathedral. Summas are intellectual; cathedrals are cosmic.
In the plays of August Wilson, you can, for sure, hear the music of the blues; but not one blue note will exist in the August Wilson Center for African American Culture.