Yo! I’m so excited to be getting on the road tomorrow for the next edition of our PUBLIC CLASS on Black Modernism in Architecture, Design and Pop Culture.
If ur interested in these public classes, tap in w us!! We got a whole tour coming up this summer and we goin be headed to a city near you real soooon.
Packing some prints and zines rn for yall tomorrow - and wanted to share some of these city-based vibes I been thinking bout for DC.
So this is a bunch of random shit I found out bout the city. People, places and pop culture moments that speak to Black folks and our experience w this modernism thing yall keep talking bout.
Marion Barry. Yo when I was a kid I thought it was two diff cats. Marion and Barry. Hahahaha.
But Mayor Barry, he ran from 1979-1991 AND 1995-1999. He was the first mayor I really knew. I can remember that clearly, and remember him getting busted in the hotel room w crack. Haha. But its wild - peep this video of my cuz Tommy Porter talkin truth bout Mayor Barry hahaha. My fam really got legends.
The 1st trained Black landscape arch in the US!!! A North Carolina OG born 1868. He’s the cat who designed a bunch of campuses for our HBCU’s. Tuskeegee University, Fisk, Lane and mass others.
Then in 1930 he moved to DC ad opened his own landscape arch firm, again the first African-American owned in the states!! One of my fav projects of his was at Howard. Peep “The Yard” that he designed for the campus quad.
Cant not mention Langston Terrace Dwellings housing projects, the 1st federally funded housing complex in DC, and one of the first couple in the US. The project was named after John Mercer Langston, an abolitionist and attorney who founded the Howard Uni law school.
Designed by Black architects Hilyard Robinson and Paul R. Williams, the international style projects were built between 1935 and 1938. The site planning and landscape arch for LDT was actually completed by brother David Williston too!!
Peep how the apartment buildings were built around the common areas. Then theres that wild terra-cotta art on the courtyard walls and the concrete animal sculptures the kids would climb on in the playground.
In 1987, Langston Terrace was officially listed on the national register of historic places.
Yo this really the first time I ever heard about Howard University and its homecoming. (Linked the video on the pic!)
"Ain't no tellin' where I may be
May see me in D.C.
At Howard Homecoming
with my man Capone, dumbin'
Richard Hunt outta here. A Chicago cat, born on the south side in 1935.
His work uses “industrial materials and modern methods to sculpt organic forms and historical archetypes… such as freedom, flight, and progress”.
He became known as THE most prominent African American abstract sculptor and artist of public sculpture.
One of my fav’s of his is the bronze joint at Blackburn Center on the Howard campus. Its funny, never knew its official name til just now, but we used to call it a bridge back in the day.
Aint this gogo? Man, me and my brothers use to dance to this crazy haha. Shit, our parents too. Then we would go even harder hahaha.
Peep the video by Spike Lee.
Ending on this bcos it’s just soo good. This the one. See yall tomorrow D.C.
P.S. Cant forget bout PG County (pretty girl county what uppp!!!)
-Coop.
#blackmodernism
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