Hip-Hop Architecture : John Belle Travel Fellowship 2021

2021 John Belle Travel Fellowship William Hansen

Hip-Hop architecture : Learning to listen to the post-occupancy report of modernist housing projects in New York City and trying to destigmatize these communities by consulting with them.

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Acknowledgments

To the community, participants and all other people I had the chance to cross path with, thanks for letting me inside of your world! This study is for you.

I’d like to express my deep gratitude toward the BeyerBlinderBelle Foundation to have recognized in my proposition a sensibility towards an overlooked community within the field of architecture and to have granted me the necessary funds to undertake this Fellowship.

To Dr. Sara Stevens (UBC), a special thank you for the constant support and guidance in the process of undertaking a field study.

Finally, thanks to John Beyer and Kat Monaghan for all the help you provided me toward organizing the study and making sure I had everything I needed.

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Before we get into this topic, I have compiled a short playlist for those who are not necessarily familiar with Hip-Hop music from New York City or for people that would just like to put themselves in the mood of the topic.

The playlist is not from any era in particular, just some music I would listen to while undertaking the project. Enjoy! William

Disclaimer : This playlist contains explicit content.

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1. Open Spotify app on your phone 2. Tap “search” then select the camera icon 3. Point the camera at the code above Note : The different songs are listed in the Annex of the document 5

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Fig. 1 : NYCHA project in Harlem, 2021. Photo : William Hansen

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Even though Hip-Hop is a bi-product of modernist projects, it is often overlooked that Hip-Hop culture also altered this architecture - physically and through the media - and helped to prevent the downfall of the Public Housing Projects, positioning them as an incubator of American capitalist and cultural success.

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Fig. 2 : Brooklyn cityscape, 2021. Photo : William Hansen

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Today, Hip-Hop is one of the most influential vectors of culture in the world. In 2018, Hip-hop music made up for a total of 21.7% of all music consumption per genre in the United States, overtaking lead genres like Pop and Rock, both of which until then seemed almost unbeatable.1 The long journey of the now not-so-underground culture has always been - and still is - linked to the urban settlements it was born in. Hip-Hop has been true to itself, its urbanity and its racial anchors by celebrating its origins in the housing projects. These same projects and the African American community that live there are the continuing foundation of the culture’s authenticity.2 Some of the most prominent icons, such as Shawn Corey Carter (aka Jay-Z), heavily “capitalized on a mythic image of the housing projects as an incubator for success in a neo-liberal economy” 3 .In light of this close tie between modernist public housing projects and Hip-Hop, some architectural designers and scholars began to raise questions about how the “architectural fantasy” of the modernist housing projects have helped create what is now a mainstream cultural movement, but also how this same movement can offer grounds of operation and emancipation for this particular typology and the communities that inhabit it. Many of these theorists and practitioners tend to reject a scholarly attitude toward this topic, because it appears that Hip-Hop communities are grown from everything but scholarly methods.

Craig Wilkins, precursor of the Hip-Hop architecture theory, states : “The space of Hip-Hop invites us to ask whether it is logical to expect a culture that has been placed on the margins of society to employ the same language.” 4 Hip-Hop is largely about creating a culture by taking what one was given and creating a world out of it.5 To defend the relevance of Hip-Hop culture in architecture, perhaps architectural designers need to look back to what was offered to these communities as a backdrop for their everyday life.

This study will focus mainly on the cradle of Hip-Hop culture ; the modernist public housing projects of New York City examined through the lens of their historical and sociological backgrounds, site visits, interviews with experts and tenants as well as precedents of “Hip-Hop architecture”.

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The modernist promise

To understand how Hip-Hop was born in the 1980s, we need to first understand how the social structures that nurtured the movement began at the turn of the 20th century. The catalyst of public housing projects in NYC - under the direction of NYCHA6 - was to solve many urban problems the city was facing.

The most immediate problem was the presence of slums in different parts of the city. The slums, as seen in figure 3, were considered by many activists as a “vexing and imminent threat to urban welfare”, providing only a limited amount of opportunities to their tenants, thus creating an unemployment problem.7 Another problem that the city faced was the population boom that happened at the beginning of the century that was about to accelerate after the end of the second World War 8. The solution posed by the city of New York was the creation of NYCHA to undertake the Herculean task of clearing the slums and building new housing complexes that would be affordable and also establish a minimum standard of quality for residential projects.

Slums, like favelas or other forms of informal settlements, were anchored in a sort of universal rejection of the “propensity for top-down planning common to architects and urbanists” 9. Robert Moses, a prominent architect and urbanist of the 20th century, was to address the problem in synchrony with the governmental structure that was NYCHA. Implementing a tabula-rasa and then articulating new spaces of living “from top-down” was seen as the best option to address the problems previously raised. Even though a municipal housing program represented a never-before-seen assault on private property in the city, the NYCHA program to build public housing “from-top-down” in the metropolis was fairly well received by the private real estate business core. The support from the real estate investors came from the fact that clearing the slums would benefit them since the increase in quality of the neighborhoods would enhance the value of their properties around the city.10 As the years passed, NYCHA would not abandon its role in the cleaning of the slums. Many years and projects after its creation, NYCHA stated in its 1962 annual report that “public housing is still the most effective single instrument the city has for slum clearance. Urban renewal, school construction, neighborhood conservation and other public improvements would be delayed if housing were not available for the dislocated low-income families”11 Sadly, as history unfolds, Hip-Hop (and the tenants of New York City public housing projects in general) inherited a polluted and crumbling environment abandoned by the wealthy who flew for the suburbs - leaving the Hip-Hop generation in an urban settlement that resembles to some extent the slums NYCHA tried so hard to annihilate.12 12

Fig. 3 Bandits Roots - Photo : Jacob Riis, 1888

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Fig. 4 Lillian Wald Houses (1949). Photo : La Guardia Wagner Archive 14

After clearing the slums, NYCHA started to build the physical realm in which Hip-Hop would eventually be born. At the beginning of the century, construction technology was advancing rapidly and an increasing number of “luxurious” buildings incorporated elevators which allowed them to be taller.

There was a growing desire for high rises within the middle class as well, as tall buildings became a symbol of success.13 In seeking to house what is now an enormous segment of the city’s working class at low cost, NYCHA decided that, indeed, providing the middle class with high rise buildings was the best and most efficient solution. Not only did they think it was cost efficient, Robert Moses and the team at NYCHA saw an opportunity to enhance urban welfare using this typology, one that they believed was going to provide generous amounts of light and air to its tenants. To optimize all of these gestures, the city of New York took the radical approach of building high while reducing the sizes of the rooms and drastically cutting the presence and quality of interior finishes.14 Figure 4, a photograph from one of the archetypes of the typology, provides clues about design choices that were made by designers. The typology, heavily influenced by Tower In The Park15 , seemed to have disregarded an important component that LeCorbusier envisioned for these projects: the glass facades.

Even though the buildings offer a generous amount of “punch windows”, they are far from transparent buildings.16 The simplistic approach to interior finishes also appear to have been carried out on the bleak facades of the project, which present next to no rhythm, identity or even enhanced access to light and air. In the context of Hip-Hop’s reaction to its physical context, the acknowledgment of anonymous generic facades becomes crucial because of the rhythmic, rough and raw aesthetic that is characteristic of the music itself.

The banality of these projects are underlined by Lewis Mumford, legendary foe of high-density urbanism, who remarked in 1950 that the projects built for the poor and the middle class “look as if they had all been designed by one mind, carried out by one organization, intended for one class of people, bred like bees to fit into these honeycombs”.17 These projects - now famously called “The concrete jungle”18 - wanted to approach design as a socially conscious form of creation. Ironically, it seems today that forcing upon people an ideal way to live only divorces them from their own patterns of life. 19

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The form of these projects are not only influenced by their masses and finishes, but also by their voids and amenities. When designing the projects, the planners approached them as a “social engineering” exercises that would lean extensively on the abundant presence of public and communal spaces to attain “collective efficacy”. Collective efficacy is a term devised by social scientists to describe the “ability of neighborhoods to realize the common values of residents and maintain effective social controls.”20 The need for this type of social engineering came from the fact that even though the slums had been cleared, the public housing projects were facing a high chance of being populated by the lower classes of society and their share of social problems. In truth, the first tenants of public housing projects were, according to lawyer and activist Van Jones, mainly “refugees from white terrorism in the south” fleeing organizations such as the KuKluxKlan to find a new life up north. They were also the first generations of Afro-Americans to be born in a legally de-segregated America.22 To address this supposedly problematic demographic, it was believed that the “negative effects of crime, poor schools, and other factors would be tempered by the positive effects of participating in better connected organizations.” 23 Figure 5 expresses this idea of providing a large percentage of public spaces within the new developments. Once again linking to LeCorbusier’s theory of “Towers in the Park”, these open spaces were supposed to enhance the social dynamic between tenants as well as providing spaces - from playgrounds to sport amenities - for families to thrive. It was believed that these spaces would help to solve unemployment, since a healthy community can easily become a productive one. This theory was believed to be promising across the board. In 1946, The New York Times even predicted that in East Harlem the combination of “large-scale public housing developments’’ with new parks, highways, and schools would “eradicate the slum areas and transform Harlem into one of the attractive neighborhoods of the city.”24 After visiting the Hillside Homes in 1935 (figure 5), people in charge of revising projects built by NYCHA were impressed by the large auditorium, club rooms and exterior recreation spaces. The architects, reported the New York Times, “have planned some novel features such as a fully equipped clinic, a supervised nursery for the care of children, a wading pool, a playground along the waterfront, and an ‘amphitheater’ seating 250 persons.” In addition, NYCHA provided four community rooms for general use. Mayor La Guardia justified these facilities by associating them with a vision of home: “We are going to give the people who live in this project real homes in a community they can take pride in.”25 Sadly, this dream of creating a microcosm of urban welfare did not hold up for long. In 1938, three years after this initial visit, only twenty-seven of the fifty stores that were built for the community were rented. The authority had to drop rental rates by 50 percent in order to attract more tenants. These early difficulties discouraged NYCHA from providing stores in its projects, a factor in the lack of liveliness and social cohesiveness in the later superblocks.26 It became clear that solving the main goal of unemployment in the former slums was harder than it seemed and that the tenant’s everyday life was slowly sliding into a land of broken dreams. The low-income minorities in inner-city centers had to navigate the complex political, economic, and social terrain of urban reform. In these contested environments, it became hard for Blacks and Latinos from the community to best position themselves to benefit from this reform and revitalization.27 As these urban failures multiplied, the public housing projects began to face the challenges of maintaining the outcast community they helped create. The years passed, and the crime rate slowly worsened. NYCHA had to confront intentional vandalism as its tenancy grew younger and more discorded. A report from 1971 found that “aside from normal wear and tear, much of the mechanical difficulties with elevators has been due to misuse and vandalism by children.” Elevator roof “joy riding” occasionally resulted in fatalities; bored kids had found that “riding on top provides a great deal of excitement.” Vandalism of hatch doors was often so bad that the entire door had to be replaced.28 16

Fig. 5 Model Photography of the Hillside Homes in the Bronx 17

Fig. 6 Analytic photo collage of StuyTown by William Hansen 18

Stuyvesant Town

During my field study exploring the different public housing projects of Manhattan, I stumbled upon Stuyvesant Town ,a private housing complex which had all of the architectural features of post-war public housing projects. Unlike many other visits I did, the complex appeared to have been maintained quite well and really did feel like “towers in a park”, as we can see on figure 6. It also appears that the privatization of the complex led to a safer environment and a better maintained environment. The demographic was not the one of the NYCHA projects, most of the inhabitants were not visible minorities and also seemed financially well off. It is then interesting to ask ourselves whether, in the end, the modernist dream was only meant to work in privileged and privatized settlements.

On the other hand, its introverted and repetitive form created a “city within the city”, leading to great deal of confusion from external visitors, three of whom asked me for directions. In the photo collage, we can also find a hidden alien, a timid wish of the tenants to revendicate their uniqueness and leave a personal trace in such an anonymous complex. Just like with graffiti art, the tenants seem to want to say “I exist”.

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The legacy of Robert Moses and NYCHA, which makes up for roughly 658 playgrounds, 28 000 apartment units and 2.6 million acres of public parks, became a failed attempt to engineer happy and productive communities all around the five boroughs. As New York City entered the 70s, the downfall of the modernist promise set the stage for Hip-Hop to rise. 29

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The birth of Hip-Hop As the crime rates grew higher and social hardships grew worse, the enchantment of the modernist public housing gave way to disappointment. To escape this reality, people from the Bronx - mainly teenagers - were looking for a good time. These good times, without a surprise, commonly manifested as parties. Slowly Hip-Hop culture was beginning to develop in the community rooms, basements and playgrounds of moderate and low income housing projects.30 As the appeal for these “dance nights” rose, so did the thirst of young teenagers for music creation. One teen in particular, Clive Campbell, alias DJ Kool Herc or simply Herc, was to change the narrative of the projects forever. On the night of August 1973, organized within the community hall of his residence at 1520 Sedgwick Ave in the Bronx (see figure 8), Herc played the first ever “break beat”. This innovative new approach to music had no less an impact on African American culture than dynamite had on the Pruitt-Igoe project.31 It was believed at the time that neighborhoods with concentrated poverty and racial segregation had insufficient assets and positive bonding or bridging social capital to connect the poor to opportunity.32 This belief was mainly true until the break-beat was invented at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. When I visited the site of Hip-Hop’s birth the first thing that struck me was not the architectural attributes of the project but rather its position within the Bronx. The brick tower is placed in an urban pocket strongly delimited by the Bronx river on its eastern side and a myriad of circulation infrastructures on its southern side. The tenants of 1520 Sedgwick also need to walk at least 25min to reach metro station and there is a lack of any public green spaces nearby. (see Fig. 7) This observation made me reflect about the way low income housing is sometimes cut off from metropolitan activities and how maybe this pocket of urbanity fed the cultural phenomena of Hip-Hop. If a group of people is cut off from society, it seems inevitable that they will form a new and different construction of identity. Also, the absence of generous exterior public space makes a strong argument for why the youth would extensively use the community rooms.

Fig. 7 : Context 22

Infrastructural limits

Closest metro line (D)

Project site

Green spaces

Fig. 8 : 1520 Sedgwick Avenue Bronx. Photos : William Hansen 23

Fig. 9 : 1520 Sedgwick Avenue Bronx. Photo : William Hansen 24

As said before, it is in this particular building that DJ Kool Herc performed a break-beat for the first time. A “break-beat” is a simple yet innovative way of using two identical vinyls and looping the same small part of the vinyls back and forth between both of them. This way it becomes easy to have an infinite “beat” that is just a repetition tangling from one vinyl to another. As Lawrence Chua - co writer of the book ArchiPop - mentions, it is important to note that Herc’s “break-beats'' drew directly from the modernist public housing projects since this type of music - according to Herc - “drew on the blocks (modernist housing projects) affinities of repetition, regularity and use of standardized parts.”33 Hip-Hop has used montage to isolate a specific part of a larger composition to create a new aesthetic experience of sound,image and feeling. The artists of Hip-Hop have, in many respects, used the techniques of montage in a more critical way than the international style architects responsible for the modern housing in which so many of Hip-Hop artists were nurtured.34 It is also clear that the social engineering work

by Robert Moses and NYCHA directly influenced what was to become the biggest musical movement since Jamaican sound system culture in the Bronx. This culture had a crucial influence on the new approach to sound as a staccato rhythm of the City’s mixed high-rise slab block and low-rise brick housing. 35 In fact, the Jamaican connection is hip-hop’s strongest claim to specifically African roots. The technology, in addition to the concept of talking over recorded music arrives mainly via the Jamaican Sound System but also the rhythmic, “cut n mix” sound that is at the very heart of hip-hop aesthetic.36 Sitting on these premises, it becomes clear that both the form of the modernist projects as well as the “social engineering” of the projects influenced the early days of Hip-Hop.

A few years later, Hip-Hop took the leap no one at the “block parties” thought could be done: Hip-Hop entered professional recording studios. In 1979, a group of young people from the Harlem neighborhood of Sugar Hill called “The Sugar Hill Gang” released the now internationally recognizable “Rappers Delight”. Even though it was technically a rap/hip-hop song, the record was quickly refuted by the core Hip-Hop community for its lack of urban attitude. On the streets, word had it that rhyming over a disco backup is not what makes Hip-Hop, rather it is the representation of the culture that does.38 It then became clear that the glue that held the movement together went far beyond the technicalities of sound but was more about the shared story of the young Black and Latino youth raised in New York City’s public housing. This obsession for “realness and representation” is one example of how traditional hip-hop culture is a community defined by codes of behavior, dress, back story, and language shaped by their shared physical environment and social circumstance.39

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Physical limits of the projects

The palpable strength of spatial limits in the projects, as they were observed at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, seem to be a recurrent theme within the different public housing urban realms. During my visits, I noticed that Sedgwick Ave was not the only one strangled by major infrastructures. It was the case of many, such as the Rangel Houses in Washington Heights (fig.11). Surprisingly, these urban conditions even translate into smaller spaces of the different NYCHA housing projects. As seen in fig.10, the Martin Luther King Jr Towers, right in the heart of Harlem, are punctuated by different limits and dead ends that tend to break down the mega blocks into smaller pockets of spaces, hardly navigable from one to the other. One can only ask himself if these design gestures were an intentional act of marginalization of the - largely - Afro-American demographic that inhabits these projects. Not only are the projects difficult to approach, the site visits made me realize that the amount of spatial limits within them also make it difficult to leave the housing projects.

Forced to look inwards, the communities of the projects then began to rely on what the public housing offered that didn’t require a strong relationship with the community beyond the limits of the projects. This marginalization through means of space resulted in communities with different practices than what can be seen in the rest of the city - for example laying empty bottles of cognac and champagne in the park to pay tribute to a deceased member of their community (fig. 11).

To me, these architectural and urban scale limits are some of the key reasons for the genesis of Hip-Hop. It happened in community rooms of public housing projects because ,maybe, they did not have anywhere else to go given the hardships of just getting out of these environments.

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Fig.10 : Martin Luther King Jr Towers, Harlem. Photos : William Hansen

Fig.11: Rangel Houses, Washington Heights. Photos : William Hansen 27

“The block is hot”

One the bonding element of the culture is to stay true to what and who they are as well as where they come from, physically and socially. It appears that the line of thought in the projects was that some individuals may experience success, despite negative structural conditions, in part because of differences in their social networks, cultural frames, and cultural narratives.40 Even in its early days, Hip-Hop was determined to capitalize on stories of the shared environment and struggle. Even though research refutes the notion that all poor individuals from the same ethnic group living in the same neighborhood share a “common culture”41, the instability of the public housing projects was an important shared tie in Hip-Hop's development arc.42 While the romanticization of the struggle was flourishing in the music and art emerging from the communities of these urban blocks, the crime severity in the projects was skyrocketing. In fact, violent crime constituted 48.8 percent of total crime in NYCHA projects but only 20.9 percent in the city as a whole in 1975. A decade prior, violent crimes were almost half the percentage. NYCHA’s projects had become mean places to live where dangerous crimes were happening more and more. The most likely place to be robbed in a NYCHA project was the elevator (34.8 percent of crimes), followed by apartments (18.5 percent), hallways (15 percent), and finally lobbies (14.1 percent).43 It would be easy to point fingers at these communities for being “dangerous”, but maybe it would be more judicious to reflect on the urban and social conditions they inherited. In the face of injustice and low opportunities, tenants of NYCHA turned to alternative modes of creating capital and surviving. As the system failed them, the movement gave itself the right to question the “truth” on its effect of power and question power on its discourses of truth.44 In the architectural cradle of hip-hop - the public housing projects of the Bronx - the environment was burning and a hot night of June 1977 was about to offer this daring community with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

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Fig. 12 : Shop on Broadway the morning after the 1977 blackout

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That night the Bronx was on fire and New York City was paralyzed by a total blackout. This blackout resulted in many riots and looting all around the city. This uncertain time was seen by the communities of poor neighborhoods - including the hip-hop community - as an opportunity to regain power by appropriating valuables (see fig.12).

As the Bronx turned pitch black and continued to burn, Hip-Hop began to rise.45 Even though it fed the public opinion about violence in the projects, that night became a turning point in the history of Hip-Hop because many members of the community acquired a complete set of recording studio equipment overnight.

Most of them did not know how to use the pieces of equipment, and so they regrouped in the projects and started perverting these technologies to create new sounds, the same way Dj Kool Herc did with vinyl players. This is one of the reasons that many theorists write that hip-hop architecture is committed to using and reusing materials transformatively and creatively, removing the hegemonic proper46. It becomes interesting to draw links between “jazz as the music of the construction era”47 and hip-hop as the music of the renovation era.

Rap was born as a technological form that relies on the reformation of the recorded sound in conjunction with rhymed lyrics to create its distinctive sound.48 Even though, at the time, people saw rap as a vehicle for gang violence in the housing projects, most artists of this era disagreed. Dj Cool Clyde, explains it was something the tenants used as a way to talk about their struggle and a way to escape gangs and violence.49 This use of music as a self affirmation tool is arguably the reason why Hip-Hop is so powerful.

The whole culture lies within its ability to conflate music and lived experience, to make both the past and the present zones of choice that serve distinct social and political interests.50 It was felt that finally the “hood” was blessed with a potential way out.

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“As the Bronx turned pitch black and continued to burn, Hip-Hop began to rise” - Sekou Cooke

The blackout of 1977 reminds us that the political context, lack of resources and reappropriation of space belong together in a list of more traditional aesthetics from which hip-hop has sprung.51 Taking control over the story of 1977 is also one of the reasons why Hip-Hop style is a type of urban reappropriation that acts - using sound and space - both as a protest and a celebration ; a call to arms and a call to action.52 This historic event was the one to spark riots against the narrative forced upon the community by Robert Moses and NYCHA. On this topic, Sekou Cooke, author of “ Hip-Hop Architecture” comments: “ If, as Martin Luther King wrote, “a riot is the language of the unheard, a result of living with daily ugliness of the slum life, educational castration”, then hip-hop is Dr King's language rendered as art, and set to music.”

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“The World is Yours”: Re-appropriating the projects

Fig. 13: Grasping the projects. William Hansen 32

Years following the 1977 blackout, Hip-Hop took off. In the early 80s, you could count more rappers and “beat-makers” in New York than there were public housing blocks. As the “golden-era”53 of hip-hop began, crack took over the inner city and the public housing imagined by the modernist took a drastic turn. It then appeared more and more evident that the reformers of NYCHA were naive to think that better housing would inevitably lead to better social conditions. Even the carefully selected tenants of these low income housing projects would have to be watched.54 The modernists, otherwise, showed hip-hop how to nourish utopian images of a neighborhood. Hip-Hop appropriated the modernist technique of montage to formulate complex utopian images of New York City’s housing projects as both an incubator for success in American capitalism as well as a place to imagine new social possibilities.55 Hip-Hop indeed took the mythic vision of the projects that modernism created and completely flipped the script or, to put in hip-hop terminology, remixed it. Media was portraying the public housing projects as a place of despair and poverty, while Hip-Hop portrayed it as a place where you could become rich and successful by navigating the underworld of drugs and raw artistic expression. The first ones to gain serious financial wealth through the image and culture of Hip-Hop were Rick Rubins and Russell Simmons, founders of the now legendary record label Def Jam. They were the ones who literally took hip-hop out of the projects and exposed it to the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York City. They both made hundreds of millions of dollars by marketing unadulterated Black youth culture to mainstream society.56 What they did with Def Jam Records opened a door for the kids of the projects to eventually produce a billion dollar industry, allowing them a fair shot at capitalist success in New York City. The fact is, the social engineering that the modernists tried to implement on the projects to create a fertile future seemed to have failed where Hip-Hop culture grew. Tenants had certain ties but the real sense of community rose from the hardship of living in the projects and the Hip-Hop culture that emanated from it. In its report on Hip-Hop in the projects, the Hasting Law Journal states that “Unlike most community activities, culture builds bridges across the divides of geography, ethnicity, and social class. By building social networks within and between neighborhoods, cultural engagement fosters collective capacity, especially in low-wealth communities.” The power and promise of rap music actually rests in the bosom of urban America. Years of degradation, welfare handouts, institutional racism and discrimination have created a community where little hope, low self-esteem and frequent failure translates into drugs, teen pregnancy and gang violence, all of which also became fuel to the genre. 57

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I was intrigued to visit the Marcy’s Houses in Brooklyn, as it is often referred to in different Hip-Hop records. Unlike Stuyvesant Town, the sentiment of the broken modernist dream within this housing project was much more apparent.

Looking half abandoned, the “project” felt like an architectural experiment left behind. I found it sad, especially when I realized that I was the only white person there. As if I had nothing to do in this struggling environment, the masses of young Blacks and Latinos were asking me if I needed directions and who I was. As Jay-Z would say, “Where I’m from, Marcy son, aint nothing nice (...) modernism laid the foundation of the school of hard knocks”.58 I think that the iconic image that this project has within the Hip-Hop culture as a portrayal of hardship echoes in real life, especially in regards to lighting.

It seemed that, unlike what the modernists promised, the space did not at all provide abundant amount of light. Instead, it was a dark and almost scary environment, even in the middle of a summer afternoon. The presence of temporary light fixtures (see fig.14) even gave the space a jail-like atmosphere.

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Fig. 14 : Marcy’s Houses, Brooklyn. Photos : William Hansen 35

Fig. 15 : Cover art for the Album “Illmatic-Nas” 1994

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In 1994, an album was about to take a bold stab at making the world acknowledge the public housing projects’ ambitions and traumas. Illmatic, the first album written by 20 year old Nasir Jones (aka Nas) from the projects of Queensbridge, was about to become the archetype of post-disco era Hip-Hop albums. Illmatic sought recognition for the often forgotten borough of Queens and the violence that was taking place there. Queens was a world away from Brooklyn and the Bronx, and Nas wanted to demonstrate that the struggle of the NYCHA tenants was not a question of neighborhood, but a question of identity.59 Trying to understand the unapologetic record is just the same as trying to understand the evolution of a culture that was literally trying to express their frustration with their environment.60 If Sugar Hill’s story raises several key points about the importance of authenticity that are critical to hip hop definition, Nas made clear that this cultural datum was the result of social problems taking place in the projects.

The whole aim of this album can be summarized through the imagery on the cover (fig.15). It shows a picture of young Nas superimposed with a picture of the QueensBridge public housings. Perplexed, the child looks out of his window upon a perspective framed by modernist public housing projects.

Furthermore, Nas said that this cover is perfect for this album since the record is, to him, “an opened window on the hardship of the project for the world to see. They need to know we exist and what we go through. Some kids grew up looking at parks, we grew up looking at where this gun “pop” is coming from”.61 Seeing Illmatic as an archetype of ‘’modern’’ hip-hop, we then understand that hip-hop did not create violence or misogyny but is more of a reflection on the legacy of modernism. The only thing that hip-hop did was to capitalize on its negative environment by selling it as a narrative.62 Similarly, one understands the unbreakable tie between the architecture and the culture that is shaped within it since this strategy draws from the technical and cultural montage that the modernists used while undertaking the project and hip-hop just reappropriated these projects.63 A new coherence emerged from the shifting point that was Illmatic, because the old order of modernism is exposed to be a hollow sham, one of surfaces that is in fact fissured.

Fig. 16 Queensbridge Houses, Photo : William Hansen 37

The Queensbridge Houses are - in my opinion - an even more iconic urban settlement in the collective memory of the Hip-Hop community and fans than the Marcy Houses. As stated before, they are the projects that inspired Illmatic which became an archetype for what is now called “east coast Hip-Hop”. There are striking similarities between Marcy’s and the Queensbridge houses. They are both the lowest NYCHA developments I have visited in the five boroughs, both presenting only six stories above ground. When asked about it, a young tenant I crossed path with inside the project told me, “I prefer it like that, you get to know everybody in your building, you are kind of someone”.

Common

Private

Circ.

Public Fig. 17 Unfolded photo collage of Queensbridge Houses

by William Hansen 38

This encounter made me reflect on the impact of built density toward community building and the social dynamics going on in the NYCHA projects. Even though they are living in the largest public housing project in North America, the Queensbridge Houses tenants really did appear as knowing one another and even though it might not be the most prosperous place in New York, there seemed to be a certain sense of community and pride. These observations are based simply on the fact that most people said hi to one another and many people - especially the youth - had pieces of clothing referring to the cultural phenomena of the projects (like t-shirts of Queensbridge rappers or NYCHA related gear). An elder tenant, George, who lived there for many years recalled to me that since Nas “made it”, the projects really changed. “It seems that all of a sudden people understood that even if we live in a crime-filled place, if we can push behind that one talent in the neighborhood so that he makes it, well… Maybe there’s a chance this person will lift us from above with them”. The fact is that, if looking at this quote strictly through the lens of Hip-Hop, it is exactly what happened. After one person got catapulted on the billboard, many others from Queensbridge did as well. For instance, groups and artists like Mobb Deep who, the year following the release of Illmatic, became successful due to their hit album “The Infamous”.

This sense of community support in Queensbridge seems to extend further than Hip-Hop. For the first time in all my visits, I’ve actually seen shops within the public housing with high customer density, as the original designers imagined. Even though the Queensbridge projects are far from being the ideal place to live in the eyes of most people, I found within this site a fairly happy community empowered by the voice of Hip-Hop. It seems like the pride of the tenants overcomes the hardships of daily lives in Queensbridge.

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Many of the thoughts and reflections in this study comes from vast theoretical investigation but a great portion also leans on ideas reflected by tenants, experts and other people that I had the chance to talk to. Given that Hip-Hop draws heavily from the lived experience of its constituents, it was important to me to conduct in-person interviews to supplement the research. Hip-Hop has a gift of tying together a diverse array of people through narratives and realities. This is why I chose a variety of people in these “spotlighted” interviews.

Fig. 18 :Ajani,. Photo : William Hansen

Born in Sri Lanka and raised in Canada, Ajani Dharmapala moved to New York City in her 20s to pursue a career in visual art. Heavily invested and connected in the creative world of the city, she is now a New York based set and production designer as well as a multi disciplinary artist. Some words and sentences have been modified to enhance readability.

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William :

Do you feel like Hip-Hop music had any impact on developing your identity?

Ajani :

I think the genre absolutely impacted the way I and my generation thinks. If you are listening to Hip-Hop and Rap, your fear dissolves. The real values of Hip-Hop are far from the pristine image of it, but are more about fighting against the challenges and this whole “hustle culture” completely tinted this generation. Some people living on my block, they are like 17 to 21, these dudes are local full time Hip-Hop identity.

When I talk to them, they are always fried and bumping some local rapper tracks.

Looking at them, I get to experience Hip-Hop in a more healthier way, a community way trying to make something positive from their environment.

William :

In the context of Hip-Hop , what do you think Public Housing Projects represent?

Ajani :

They represent a lot. Technically, Hip-Hop is maybe the only genre that refers a lot to the artists living conditions of where these musicians come from as a propeller of the art. You don’t hear that consistently in other genres. Architectural infrastructure is in some ways the musical infrastructure of the genre; they embrace what happens in these spaces , the struggle but also a celebration of where they are. Hip-Hop is not really ashamed of the projects.

William :

Do you have any personal experience of Public Housing Projects?

Ajani :

I was so personally impacted by my first encounter with Public Housing projects.

When I first came here I was trying to develop a network so I was talking to anybody on the streets. I was in Chelsea around the galleries and everything and there is this huge public housing complex there and I crossed paths with a guy who was some kind of “Hood Star”, really nice and funny. It was raining so he invited me inside and I was pretty naive about what I was about to encounter. I lasted in that place for about 11 minutes, the impact this space had on us on the way we socialized was significant. I needed to leave right away.

William :

And why was that in spatial terms?

Ajani :

Well first of all it was so congested and there was a sense of insecurity. I feel like the place was about to fall apart. I was really overwhelmed. Maybe today I would not be so traumatized since I have now adapted to the landscape here, which is messy and rough. Now everytime I see these kinds of huge urban gestures from the outside I can’t help to think about the inside conditions, really complicated layouts with narrow corridors and poor natural lighting.

William :

Do you think that pushes the tenants to spend more time outside?

Ajani :

Yeah for sure. I think there is something to do between Hip-Hop culture happening on the street - like cyphers - and the poor quality of interior living conditions.

Culturally, it pushes the community out. The living conditions were so poor that the guy I met told me that once a week he books a room in a nice hotel across the street. I think that says a lot about this whole aim of Hip-Hop as a vehicle to flee to the projects.

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William :

Where do you think the success of Hip-Hop comes from?

Ajani :

I think it is because it is really direct about how courageous it is and is really comfortable about its situation. It doesn’t want to be anything else but a narrative about who they are and how they enhanced their living situation. I think people recognize its realness. (...)

William :

Since Hip-Hop already influenced a lot of art forms, why do you think it has not heavily influenced architecture yet?

Ajani :

I mean, I think architecture just hasn’t really figured out a way. I think architecture hasn’t pulled from Hip-Hop yet - unlike lets say cubism because Hip-Hop artists don’t have a lot of relationships with architects unlike more western artists had in the past. These relationships are what could make it happen. Few of them do it, but I think it’s the role of both practices to knit these links to see the potential of these intersections. Truth be told, these relations should develop naturally and I can’t see it happening in the near future.

These observations and remarks brought by Ajani touch a myriad of topics that makes us - as designers - reflect about our own profession. Even though Hip-Hop is a tremendous cultural movement, it can be discouraging to think that some of the dynamics that birthed it happened heavily in the outdoor spaces of the public housing projects not because of the design quality of these spaces but because they might have been simply “less worse” than the interior spaces provided by NYCHA and its architects. This wish of people to escape their own homes related both in the interview and the Hip-Hop culture at large poses heavy questions about the attention given to private spaces in the public housing projects. It is also pertinent to underline the comment made about the still existing gap between the architectural practice and emergent (or well settled) BIPOC forms of art. It seems that there is a fertile ground of architectural operation that could happen if architecture allowed itself to bleed more with these other forms and expressions.

Distancing itself from western models and theoretical roots would, in my personal opinion, create new opportunities for architecture to both heal socially but also address modern topics with a fresh approach to built realms.

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Fig. 19 : Robert S. Fulton Houses and sketch,. William Hansen 43

During this study, I thought it was also important to also acknowledge the vision of the culture that is cultivated within the media and fed to people that act as outside observers of the movement. It seems like this other participant also had a share of toughts on the relationship between public spaces of the projects and the link they have with Hip-Hop. Laurent Leveillee is a digital marketing expert who has closely monitored Hip-Hop culture through media since he was a child.

Something close to a “super fan”, Larry is interested in the narratives emanating from Hip-Hop culture and the public housing projects as well as the media image forged around the movement. Like many of his generation, he hops on forums and other platforms regularly to discuss topics related to the now global phenomena that is Hip-Hop.

Fig. 20 : Larry, Photo : William Hansen 44

William :

At what point in your life did you encounter Hip-Hop culture?

Larry :

Around 10 years old or so. I got exposed to it first from music television channels like MTV. I’m more of an exterior observer exposed heavily through the mediatic tools than an active actor of the scene.

William :

Do you feel like Hip-Hop music had any impact on your life?

Larry :

Well it influenced many things but most of all I think is the fact I now play basketball.

William :

And what's the link with Hip-Hop here? Do you think they are inseparable?

Larry :

It is pretty clear to me that both these practices (Hip-Hop and Basketball) are a different manifestation of a similar community. You got many rappers playing basketball and some NBA players are ex rappers. Its different facets of the same cultural movement. In a way basketball and Hip-Hop intersect at many points ; They both require a public space, its a performance, the core demographic of both activities is mainly African Americans, they require very little equipment etc. (...)

William :

In the context of architecture, do you feel like the Public Housing project has significance to the culture?

Larry :

Of course. You know I see the blocks a bit like small little villages…

There is a saying that says it takes a village to raise a child. I also think it took a bunch of villages to push behind certain artists to grow them into stars. I think it's that wish for a sense of pride for your village that pushed people to skyrocket musicians on the billboard. You know, I’m sure there are talented rappers in places where the community does not push them and they will never be known.

William :

And do you feel that these artists had a positive or negative impact on these communities?

Larry :

In a mediatic sense, some people might judge them for vehiculing sometimes discussable values, but the truth is the myth of the African American outlaw existed before in the head of a middle-aged Caucasian. In all honesty, I don’t feel like these judgments change their direct reality within the Public Housing Projects. On the other end, Hip-Hop culture gives a way out and empowers them so, even if I’m not an African American from the project, I don’t really see why we should care about what old people think of this youth oriented movement.

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Fig. 21 : Basketball and Rapping event in Harlem, Photo : William Hansen 46

The comments and observations made by the participant toward the undeniable link between basketball and Hip-Hop culture is fairly credible. One of the best ways to do community outreach within the projects happened to be at sporting events, like this local tournament seen in fig.21, nearby some of Harlem’s public housing complexes. A master of ceremony (MC) was actually rapping and promoting some local musicians as the teams got prepared and during halftimes. My observations were that the +/- 200 people attending the event all knew each other pretty well, as they were greeting one another. In the heart of what seems like a cold urban settlement I then witnessed a social warmth where the community was allied behind local sport and culture. Being lucky enough to be there as a total outsider experiencing some of the essences of public housing projects communities, I talked to a few tenants. While some looked at me like I had nothing to do there, others were friendly, telling me about who the man on the microphone was, who the local basketball legends were, etc. It really seemed for an instant that music and sport bonded the tenants together.

This sighting also reaffirmed what Ajani said about leaving your home to seek some more enriching experiences outside of the blocks. It was as if the public space that is the basketball court, operated - during this given moment - as the cultural intersection of public housing. It becomes interesting to understand how Hip-Hop was influenced directly by the dynamics that happen in public spaces, how the movement rose from communities that maybe tend to spend more time outside than inside when possible.

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Pursuing this research and community outreach exercise, I wanted someone who witnessed and studied Hip-Hop thoroughly but also saw the early years of the movement and its evolution in time.

Jeff Mao, also known as “Chairman Mao”, is a prominent music journalist as well as an avid vinyl collector. His work spans from TV and film productions, curational art, music programming as well as being a writer for many music and media corporations. Reference in the domain when it comes to “Hip-Hop history”, Jeff can be seen in different interviews, including Netflix’s “Hip-Hop Evolution” series. Part of the collective “Egotrip” and alumni from NYU, Jeff has been living in Manhattan since the 80s and more specifically Harlem since the last 20 years.

Fig. 22 : Jeff Mao, Photo : William Hansen 48

William :

At what point in your life did you encounter Hip-Hop culture?

Jeff :

As far as the music goes, when I heard “Rappers Delight” in the lunchroom.

William :

And how has Hip-Hop impacted your life?

Jeff :

Tremendous impact. Listened to all types of music but I think with this sort of music I got immediately interested for whatever reason. Once I understood the greater context of the music, a part of something bigger - youth culture of New York City - it made me want to be part of the city and be part of this youth culture.

William :

Talking about NYC, do you think it could have happened anywhere else?

Jeff :

It is really hard for me to picture it happening anywhere else. You know, it is indigenous music to New York City. Doesn’t mean there is no other influences - it is the product of many other influences - but it still is a sort of art form and culture that develops around the immigrant experience specific to New York. You know, the thing about New York in that era that is still fascinating is that it was years of extreme resourcefulness. The art of New York city is the art of survival. The forms of expressions of Hip-Hop culture are founded in this idea of resourcefulness.

William :

And on a more physical side of things, do you think the City impacted the culture?

Jeff :

I think the intense proximity led to the need of a relief to make a life in this city. This dynamic between this sense of claustrophobia and open spaces of the city gave an opportunity for this social exchange to happen.

William :

So you feel that the public spaces had the most impact?

Jeff :

I’m not sure. If you go back to the roots of Hip-Hop, which is pretty much the Jamaican Sound System, the music was anchored in outside events already. I think it’s much more about the relief. You know, at 1520 Sedgwick, the room where this party happened is just a room really. Nothing special.

William :

Yes and it was just available I guess.

Jeff :

Totally, it comes back to this idea of resourcefulness.

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William :

What would you consider crucial spaces in Hip-Hop culture?

Jeff :

In terms of historical evolution, I think people’s bedrooms. It became the practice booth for most of this youth, a creative incubator or so called “labs”. Also any kind of communal spaces ; gymnasium, lunchrooms, venues, parks.

(...)

William :

What do you feel changed the most within the culture through the years?

Jeff :

I think that back then there was much more intimacy. Even though it still feels collaborative and community based, it became different because of the Internet.

William :

And do you think this is detrimental to community empowerment?

Jeff :

As far as the physical and geographical community, I guess it became more of a case by case situation. The artists that are still active as human beings in their community will still gain their support but it became possible to be isolated from your physical community and somehow be someone in the genre. The definition of a community changed with the Internet toward the idea of physicality. But my conception of it is that anything you do on the Internet you could do better in person.

Fig. 23 : General Grant Houses, Photo : William Hansen 50

Fig. 24 : Public Spaces, Sketch : William Hansen

This interview reaffirmed the role of shared spaces in the projects regarding the development and genesis of the cultural movement.

While still heavily occupied by BIPOC tenants, public housing is a logical space for Hip-Hop, the “indigenous music” of New York City, to bloom. The harsh conditions imposed upon the community then influenced the mindset of and survivalist attitude of Hip-Hop culture.

The fact that the quality of architecture played a large role in forming the core values of the movement makes me question to what extent architects and designers had a hand in shaping the often negative thoughts emanating from Hip-Hop. On the other hand, the most interesting outcome of this whole ballet between architecture and Hip-Hop is that, no matter what the architects threw at these communities, the culture that came out of it was unexpected. While Robert Moses and NYCHA had the megalomaniac dream to sculpt utopic communities, these communities answered by protesting against this dream with a political movement. As Jeff Mao noted, trapped in the overcrowded building complexes, the youth had to find an escape.

Hip-Hop being ultimately youth culture it was clear from the start that the relief kids were seeking would surely be on the rebellious side of the spectrum. This is why to me Hip-Hop is far more than an “outlaw” type of music, it is an act of re-appropriation over the narrative that emerged, at its genesis, from the public housing projects.

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Fig. 25 : Nomad graffitis, Bushwick. Photo : William Hansen

It appears that painting on a wall to create some kind of identity has been a technique used by NYCHA before the apparition of the first graffiti art-pieces. The difference here is that NYCHA used paint on walls as a normative and utilitarian strategy while the graffiti art aims at breaking this idea. Graffiti art is not about labeling large groups of people but instead giving a a unique voice to the singular beings.

Fig. 26 : Signs painted on a NYCHA project .Photo : William Hansen 52

This wave of re appropriation of the public housing projects did not limit itself to rap music. Acknowledged now by next to every Hip-Hop theorists, Hip-Hop has 4 facets - also known as pillars - that constitute its culture, one of which is graffiti art. To try to understand graffiti art is to produce an effort to listen to what’s on the streets and - literally - read the writings on the walls.64 Graffiti art is mainly composed of artists who ‘’tag’’ their names on their built environment using different lettering styles. This act is not only one of art technicality but one of trying to find your own voice in the projects.

In a blank urban settlement recognizable by its cold walls and repetitiveness, the graffiti artists brought a sense of identity and self-determination to the concrete giants. Far from what governmental organizations imagined when thinking about the projects, this resultant is proof that the omnipotent attitude with which NYCHA developed the neighborhoods was flawed and that - sooner or later - the tenants would have their vision to add.65

During these years - and even still today - mainstream media often portrays graffiti writers as deviants whose abnormal behavior is due to psychological problems. However studies showed that though most graffiti artists were unhappy, even angry about their experiences in school, they were highly motivated to achieve outside of it, within street culture.66 Roaming through gang turfs, slipping through the long arms and the high fences of authority, violating notions of property and propriety, graffiti writers found their own kind of wisdom that didn't need an external reward system that is often proposed in western societies.67 This whole idea of rejecting ‘’normality’’ is also another example of how hip-hop has empowered these projects, gave them a character and a culture, both of which were totally disregarded by NYCHA when sculpting their ‘’social engineering’’. Hip-Hop graffiti culture is an example of how identity construction is highly relational, occurring in the spaces between one’s subjective position and social affiliation.68 Nourishing this counter culture that is Hip-Hop, graffiti artists tagged over the city not only as a cry for acknowledgment but also to support Hip-Hop as a legitimate form of art that required technical skills and a creative edge inspired by lived experiences. Graffiti helps to make a still debated point that Hip-Hop is indeed art.69

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On August 5th 2021, I went to meet one of the early graffiti artists of New York City in a café of Brooklyn, more precisely in Bushwick. Even though the artist is well known in the domain and his “tagger name” can be read around New York City, he asked to remain anonymous, a request I respected. This transcript is a selection of what I thought were the most interesting points of the dialogue. Certain words have been omitted to avoid shocking language and enhance readability.

Fig. 27 : Hip-Hop visual art, Bushwick. Photos : William Hansen 54

William :

Why do you want to be anonymous?

Artist :

Well, you know, it's kind of better like that. I rarely go all out in interviews. It's not necessarily because my art is illegal at times, it's also to entertain the myth. This idea that we exist in a given space with a given name but that as human beings we are not that important, the message is.

William :

What message?

Artist :

Whatever the message is. If you’re a tagger, the message will be “I tagged here”, if it's a gang tag it will be to say “this is ours” and then if you are more of a street artist the message can be whatever you want : Rebellion, peace, corruption…

You can talk about whatever. That’s why I don't put my face out there too much. I still exist in people’s minds because they see my name everywhere, they know my art they can even reach me like you did. I just wanna be known for the message not for how I look, how nice my clothes are or whatever. Graffiti is real you know, its not a character game. (...)

William :

What do you think makes one graffiti related to Hip-Hop culture while another one not so much?

Artist :

I think it's the attitude of it. Like - to me - a really clean portrait on a huge wall is impressive cause it needs lots of skills, but it's not Hip-Hop.

William :

How so? Because of its preciousness?

Artist :

Not so much its preciousness, writing your tagger name on a the wall is kind of precious too, you know. But what I’m trying to say is that it's not rebellious enough - it's too soft. Hip-Hop is kind of right in your face and is about affirming yourself as loud as you can. That’s why to me the linework should always be technically strong and visually bold. The art should always speak directly of the artist too.

What I find the most interesting about this interview is how the artist wants to be someone in the city through creating a collective vision of himself not as a person but as an urban phenomena. It seems like what he refers to as “the message”, is indeed this idea of reclaiming the city in the name of a culture and a group rather than one of an individual. I also think some aesthetic tensions are at play here when drawing links between modernist architecture and what the artist considers “Hip-Hop graffiti art”. Even though they serve totally different purposes, both the modernist architects and the graffiti artists gave importance to how bold the different artistic/design gestures are as well as nourishing ideas of environmental determinism.

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Another turning point toward re-appropriating the projects - and the African American narrative in New York City - through Hip-Hop happened recently and is the opening of the Universal Hip-Hop Museum in the Bronx. Even though it is currently limited to a small space in the Bronx terminal, there is a proper museum under construction just across the street expected to be completed by 2023. (see fig.30) The importance of this museum in the Afro-American culture of the Bronx - and the world - is crucial since it legitimize in a way the culture of Hip-Hop as something that is not only a result from social repression, but as a museum-worthy form of art by itself.

When visiting, I had the chance to ask the tour guide, Eric, a couple questions :

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William :

Do you know why the museum is in the Bronx?

Why not downtown?

Eric :

I think it's all about the community and staying real to what Hip-Hop really is. Nowadays Hip-Hop is international and did break the boundaries of the Bronx, the 5 boroughs and even the United States. But a museum is about history right? And Hip-Hop history, at its origin, comes from right here in the Bronx.

William :

How would you qualify the importance of the new museum - therefore the building in the making - in the history of the culture?

Eric :

Massive, for sure. You know now that I think about it from the angle of your research, I think that what gives the building, not only the idea of a museum, but the building, a lot of power is the kind of sticking a flag in the ground attitude.

You know, the projects were kind of imposed on us, it was the only alternative for our community.

But now this new building comes from us, for us.

I think its incredible that it comes from the black community. You know in the past a lot of Black art has been robbed from our ancestors and put in museums. Now we are building our own museum, with our own art, in our own neighborhood and we are the one that will benefit from it. I think that's super powerful.

Fig. 28 : The new museum building Render : S9 architecture

Fig. 29 : Graffiti in the museum Photo : William Hansen

Fig. 30 : Site under construction Photo : William Hansen 57

Fig. 31 : QueensBridge Houses + sketch William Hansen 58

From these interviews and personal interactions, one could argue that Hip-Hop helped the Black and Latino communities of New York City to gain a sense of ownership over the public housing projects.

Flipping the script of the modernist promise, Hip-Hop did not solve every subsequent social or economic problem that arose because of the projects’ urban conditionsm, but it did provide an optimistic outlook upon difficult living conditions. The ability of this community to transform itself and mutate into one of the biggest cultural movements of the last century is something every creative field can aspire to. Opening a window into their world, the culture anchored in resourcefulness made a point about how it is possible to influence the world with restrained resources. This awe we still have for Hip-Hop culture and the sense of strength and self-determinism that it embodies proves its power and relevancy.

The erection of the soon-to-be Universal Hip-Hop Museum also underlines an undeniable fact that Hip-Hop has begun to impact our physical realms not only in terms of small interventions, but on larger public scales. This leads me to reflect about how we, as designers, can react to this phenomenon? Will we continue to be deaf to it?

To me, ignoring Hip-Hop history as a fertile ground of operation to inform how we think about buildings and community fostering would simply come from the fact we as a profession are reluctant to acknowledge how the utopic modernist dream failed so many people.

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Hip-Hop architecture

Nowadays, Hip-Hop culture has made its way into almost every art and culture form there is. From theatre and cinema all the way to fashion, Hip-Hop artists have influenced these crafts with a hint of urban culture. But what about architecture? It seems like “the first art” is the most resistant to the rebellious and rule-breaking attitude of Hip-Hop. Ironically, architecture and hip-hop have a lot to share, as both can be violent, misogynistic, homophobic as well as tools of social justice and community fostering.70 Even though architectural education tends to define architecture as a practice that is fundamentally about people, it is also legitimate to define it as the physical embodiment of dominant culture - the will of the people made visible. Paradoxically, the people have a desire for Hip-Hop, the genre having overtook the charts and spheres of creation, but this desire is rarely reflected in architectural practice. On the other hand, Hip-Hop has a pretty straightforward and widely accepted definition which states that it is a subculture that touches many creative grounds of operations and that this subculture’s foundation lays in the Black and Latino communities of the United-States.71 Acknowledging the ethnic foundation of the culture, it becomes obsessive, as designers, to think that maybe architecture could find a meaningful relationship with Black America through the study and application of Hip-Hop principles in the practice.72 Hip-Hop architecture is in some way also a rebellion against architectural practice, trying to reknit the broken cloth that should serve communities. The truth is, architectural practice in North America is still dominated mostly by a white demographic. However, that doesn’t mean there can’t be outreach or a channel of communication between the architect and BIPOC communities. I would like to think that Hip-Hop can teach us to come together to re-appropriate our own practice, just like the youth of the projects did with their built environment.73 Designers too inherited a modernist cancer that we should address in a new meaningful way.

Even though I do not see myself in any way as a gate-keeper of what is and what isn’t Hip-Hop, I think Hip-Hop as a form of art that now goes beyond the debate of race. Trying to pinpoint what is the entry ticket to Hip-Hop culture is still a debate spanning from barber shops to lecture halls. History showed us that it’s not only a matter of race, skills or background. Hip-Hop will decide what it is, not the casual observer. As Sekou Cooke, author of “Hip-Hop Architecture” says, there is no real known price to pay to enter the Hip-Hop firmament, you just need to be adopted. Personally, I think it is more about the attitude that someone - designers, artists, producers etc - adopts toward given elements and the ambition that fuels their craft. Now even if I don’t get to choose what is or what is not Hip-Hop, I think that the next few examples give some relevant insights about how designers could address Hip-Hop as a ground of operation to create new meaningful buildings.

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Fig. 32 : The Hive ,Project : ITN architects

The Hive is maybe one of the most literal incorporation of Hip-Hop culture in architecture. Working with a local “Wild Style” graffiti artist, the architects paid homage to Hip-Hop by reinterpreting notions of facades and ornaments known to the practice. By incorporating the culture within the architecture frame, the building emanates a new genre of architecture because of the niche line working that is proper to Hip-Hop culture. Translated into space and construction, Hip-Hop reaches through this project a permanent urbanity by its own, being not only an addition to an existing realm but the genesis of the essence of project.

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Another good example of reinvesting Hip-Hop attitude in architecture is “Almost Familiar”, a thesis presented by master student Riley Baecheler at the School of Architecture of the University of British Columbia in 2021. The truth is, the project that Riley did is not about “hip-hop architecture” but sure has some striking overlaps with it. The project presents some outstanding grounds of operation toward re-appropriating (white) architectural heritage using techniques that echo with Hip-Hop. The project aimed at using “mechanical pens” as a tool of reinterpretation of white colonial architectural form.74 In figure 33, we can see how Riley created a bank of inherited architectural elements to be inputted into the tool to pervert them. The output was to put in hip-hop words - a sample of architecture ready to be remixed. The flow and overlay of heritage and new form is Hip-Hop to me. It also seems clear that the use of tools we already have - in this case the mechanical pen - echoes directly with the process of how Hip-Hop artists perverted the vinyls to create something else. The juxtaposition of informal style and the heady content of political aesthetics in this project is exactly what Craig Wilkins, precursor of the “hip-hop architecture” theory, meant when calling for a rebellious architecture that creates new meanings and spaces.75 The adaptive reuse/remix of existing conditions in this project evokes the Dj’s use of tracks (buildings) as existing conditions and vocals (facade rhythm) as structural interventions. Taking place in a colonial neighborhood, Riley’s intervention adopts an attitude that is bold and unapologetic, reclaiming the subject from the object through means of technology.

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Fig. 33 : Diagrams from “Almost Familiar” thesis by Riley Baecheler

Fig. 34 : Perspective from “Almost Familiar” thesis by Riley Baecheler 63

Fig. 35 Bow-House by Malka Architecture, Photo : Laurent Clement

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The Bow-House by Malka Architecture is another example of how Hip-Hop values and perspectives on the built environment can influence architectural practice.

Using what the environment had to offer, the facade represents this mentality of hip-hop that is to create something from “nothing”.

Like Hip-Hop spaces, the project elements seem to be easily interchangeable (and most likely will be continuously transformed) by the users to meet the complex performance of spatial and identity construction.76 This idea of dynamism, flow and reuse links directly to the movement of hip-hop.

I also think that there is an inevitable link between facade compositions altered by graffiti and what this project presents. Just like graffiti artists, these singular windows carry an identity that can be perceived as mundane in a given context while, once put in relation to space, make more sense. This operation of “patchworking” the windows on an existing architectural context that originally seemed anonymous acts the exact same way as plastering painted names and symbols on a bleak modernist facade. Therefore, these additions to the given context to revendicate a sense of identity make this project echo with the ways of Hip-Hop culture.

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Conclusion

In the end, the idea of changing architecture and empowering communities within the public housing projects through the means of Hip-Hop is, of course, an architectural fantasy; the desire to both incite theoretical revolution and build practical plans for collaborative action, all in the same gesture.77 However, the truth is that a vital part of Hip-Hop culture is the act of publicly claiming one’s identity, and I believe that architecture can draw many lessons from this in a world where the the aesthetics of modernism are still heavily practiced, even though the social and ethical ideas of society have evolved far from modernist values.78 Even though architecture does not need to reclaim identity in the same sense as struggling communities do, it needs to constantly re-evaluate itself in relation to the inhabitants it serves.

The main takeaway from this study, though it may sound obvious, is that social problems and crime rates in these urban settlements are inherited. The stigmatization of a demographic will always result in resistance and behaviors that can be seen as disruptive in the eyes of the general public. The wish to control or engineer communities will always fall short to empathy and empowerment.

Secondly, this study encourages designers to stop hiding in their studio and actually go out into the world and meet people, because in the end, this is whom architecture is for. Finally, we cannot expect projects–especially the government driven ones–to play out exactly the way we would expect. The case study of Hip-Hop was for me, of course, a demonstration of how to connect with communities I do not necessarily belong to as a designer, but it was also to prove a point that once built, architecture belongs not to the architect, but the community it serves, and one shouldn’t try to foresee what is going to happen in one’s designs. We don’t get to choose.

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Ultimately, Hip-Hop will decide what it is, not the casual observer. I think architecture should apply this mentality against the overarching structures of society trying to define what should and shouldn’t be done when it comes to building. A relevant quote that describes perfectly Hip-Hop’s future is the following one by Yasiin Bey (MosDef):

Listen, people are asking me all the time Yo Mos, what’s getting ready to happen with hip-hop?

Where do you think hip-hop is going?

I tell em, you know what’s gonna happen with hip-hop?

Whatever’s happening with us

So, if there is one thing I hope I have imparted on those who read this study, is how Hip-Hop Architecture has been able to meaningfully combine its visual aesthetic with its visible ethics.79 It is to have the courage, as architects, to look at ourselves in the mirror and reflect on what we created and how we can improve.

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Annex - Playlist

N.Y State of Mind The Message Where I’m From Moment Of Truth Looking Through Darkness Lifesaver Won’t Be Long Accordition Put It On Fancy Clown Triumph Canal St. MVP Got To Have It Hell on Earth Re:Definition Hard than You Think Sunshine Rock Co.Kane Mathematics Song Cry Kingdom Come World Domination More Than Music Behind Closed Doors

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- Nas - Grandmaster Flash - Jay-Z - Gang Starr - Guru (ft. Mica Paris) - Guru (ft. Mica Baybe) - Rakim (ft. Tracey Houston) - Madvillain - Big L - Madvillain - Wut-Tang Clan (ft. Cappadonna) - A$AP Rockey (ft. Bones) - Big L - Method Man - Mobb Deep - Black Star - Public Enemy - Mos Def - De La Soul (ft. MFDOOM) - Mos Def - Jay-Z - Jay-Z - Joey Bada$$ - The Diplomats - Pharoahe Monch

Notes

1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: 8: 9: 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Statistica, consulted august 2021 Archi.Pop: Mediating Architecture in Popular Culture, p.194 Archi.Pop: Mediating Architecture in Popular Culture, p.195 Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins page 10 The architecture of Hip-Hop, Ted Talk, Craig Wilkins NYCHA = New York Housing Authority Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 98 La vie à la verticale, Documentary, Katerina Cizek Hip-Hop architecture, Sekou Cooke, page 202 : Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 266 : Edward G. Goetz, Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America (2003). : Flow-Tektoniks, Jabari Garland, page 41 : La vie à la verticale, Documentary, Katerina Cizek : Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 98 : LeCorbusier : Hip-Hop Architecture, Ted Talk, Michael Ford :Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 45 : Mike Jones (rapper from harlem) was the first to use the term to describe his built environment : Flow-Tektoniks, Jabari Garland, page 38 : Margaret F. Brinig & Nicole Stelle Garnett, Catholic Schools, Urban Neighborhoods, and Education Reform, 85 Notre Dame L. Rev. 887, 905 (2010) (citing Robert J. Sampson et al., Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy, 227 Science 918, 918 (1997)). : 13th, Documentary, Netflix / Ava Duvernay : Flow-Tektoniks, Jabari Garland, page 36 : Hip-Hop and Housing, Lisa Alexander, page 108 : Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 128 : Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 143 : Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 140 : Hip-Hop and Housing, Lisa Alexander, page 204 : Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 255 : The Fifth Pillar, Sekou Cooke, page 15 : Jeff Chang, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the HipHop Generation 67–85 : Battey 2011 : Edward G. Goetz, Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America (2003). : Archi.Pop: Mediating Architecture in Popular Culture, page 198 : Archi.Pop: Mediating Architecture in Popular Culture, page 203 : Archi.Pop: Mediating Architecture in Popular Culture, page 197 : Potter, 1995 (Painting without permission) : Hip-Hop and Housing, Lisa Alexander, page 182 : Painting Without Permission, Janice Rahn, page 111

39 : Painting Without Permission, Janice Rahn, page 84 40 : Hip-Hop and Housing, Lisa Alexander, page 301 41 : Hip-Hop and Housing, Lisa Alexander, page 166 42: Painting Without Permission, Janice Rahn, page 108 43: Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 232 44: Painting Without Permission, Janice Rahn, page 112 45 : The Fifth Pillar, Sekou Cooke, page 15 46: Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins page 13 47: LeCorbusier 48 : Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins page 09 49 : Interview with Eric Hines, supra note 219.

50: Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins page 07 51 : Total Chaos, Jeff Chang, page 355 52 : Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins page 12 53 : 1985-1995 54 : Public housing that worked, Nicholas D. Bloom, page 174 55 : Archi.Pop: Mediating Architecture in Popular Culture, p201 56 : The Big Payback, Dan Charnas, page 549 57 : Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins page 13 58 : Hard Knock Life, song, Jay Z / Roc-a-fella records 59 : The Big Payback, Dan Charnas, page 438 60 : Hip-Hop architecture, Sekou Cooke, page 29 61 : Time is Illmatic, documentary, Nas/One9 62 : The Big Payback, Dan Charnas, page 433 63 : Archi.Pop: Mediating Architecture in Popular Culture, p 193 64 : Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins page 15 65 : Hip-Hop and Housing, Lisa Alexander, page 141 66 : Painting Without Permission, Janice Rahn, 182 67 : Hip-Hop architecture, Sekou Cooke, page 03 68 : Painting Without Permission, Janice Rahn, page 134 69 : Total Chaos, Jeff Chang, page 349 70 : Hip-Hop architecture, Sekou Cooke, page 17 71 : Hip-Hop architecture, Sekou Cooke, page 18 72 : Aesthetic of equity, Craig Wilkins, page 470 74 : Almost Familiar, Thesis (UBC), Riley Baecheler 75 : Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins, page 12 76 : Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins, page 12 77 : Aesthetic of equity, Craig Wilkins, page 382 78 : Flow-Tektoniks, Jabari Garland, page 41 79 : Wrapped Spaces, Craig Wilkins page 08

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Bibliography

Books.

Medina, Lansanky , Archi-Pop : Meditating Architecture in Popular Culture, Bloomsbury Academic editions, 2014.

Dagen Bloom, Nicholas, Public Housing That Worked: New York in the Twentieth Century, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.

Cooke, Sekou , Hip-Hop Architecture, Bloomsbury Academic editions, 2021.

Chang, Jeff , Can’t Stop Won’t Stop : A History of the Hip-Hop Generation, Picador editions, 2005.

Wilkins, Craig , The Aesthetics of Equity : Notes on Race, Space, Architecture, and Music, University of Minnesota Press, 2007.

Chang, Jeff , Total Chaos : The Art and Aesthetics of Hip-Hop, Perseus editions, 2006.

Rahn, Janice ,Painting Without Permission: Hip-Hop Graffiti Subculture, Greenwood Publishing, 2002.

Charnas, Dan ,The Big Payback : The History of the Business of Hip-Hop, Penguin Group, 2010.

Goetz, Edward G, Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America, Urban Institue Press, 2003.

Articles Wilkins, Craig , (W)Rapped Space: The Architecture of Hip Hop, Journal of Architectural Education, 2000 Garland, Jabari , Flow-tektoniks: Remixing Architecture to a Hip Hop Beat, The Art of Architecture : Science edition, Ohio University, year unknown.

Alexander, Lisa T. , Hip-Hop and Housing: Revisiting Culture, Urban Space, Power, and Law, Hasting Law Journal, 2012.

Cooke, Sekou , The Fifth Pillar : A case for Hip-Hop Architecture, The Harvard Journal of African American Planning Policy, 2014.

Documentaries & Other Cizek, Katerina, La vie a la verticale, New York Times documentaries, 2013.

Ford, Michael, Hip Hop Architecture: The Post Occupancy Report of Modernism, Ted Talk, 2017.

Wilkins, Craig, The Architecture of Hip Hop, Ted Talk, 2018.

DuVernay, Ava, 13th, Netflix Original Production, 2016.

Nas and Parker, Eric, Time is Illmatic, Tribeca Film, 2014.

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