Archinect - News

In Celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day, here are a few selected lectures and events to add to your calendar

2023-10-09T08:00:00-04:00

In honor of today's Indigenous Peoples' Day celebration, we are highlighting a collection of events and lectures advancing the discourse on Native American traditions, rights, and cultures in the built environment that will be taking place this week and throughout the fall.

Affirming Indigenous Worldviews

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation
New York, Monday, October 9

The fourth AFFIRMATIONS discussion, "Indigenous Worldings," on October 9 at 6:30 PM, features Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui and Paulo Tavares. The discussion will be followed by a response from GSAPP Assistant Professor Emanuel Admassu.

Bridging Academia and Indigenous Communities

University of Pittsburgh Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences
Pittsburgh and online, Monday & Tuesday, October 9 & 10

The school's Department of History of Art and Architecture in conjunction with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History presents special Indigenous Peoples' Day programming on Oct...

Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) details the push behind its new name

2022-08-19T18:27:00-04:00

Concerns about the university’s association with and commemoration of Ryerson had been voiced by its Indigenous students, staff and faculty for years. How the university addressed those concerns with statements on its website or revised plaques placed next to Egerton Ryerson’s statue fell short of the steps necessary to speak to his legacy or the continued harm it was causing

Egerton Ryerson’s name is inextricably linked to the legacy of murder and abuse within Canada’s residential schools, as he is often cited as the system’s principal designer through his role as the country’s first Chief Superintendent of Education starting in 1844. This relation made the university a target of a nationwide protest movement which eventually took down a statue of the educator in a well-publicized June 2021 kerfuffle.

The rebranding was the product of a working group called Standing Strong (or Mash Koh Wee Kah Pooh Win) that convened with a 22-strong list of recommendations a year ago. Over 2,000 unique names (including the temporary 'X University' moniker) were considered in a public consultation. Dr. Eva Jewell, an Indigenous faculty member who detailed her own past experiences with racism at the school, tells University Affairs it "signals a willingness to listen and an attentiveness to the issues of our time."

Related on Archinect: National Gallery of Canada establi...

Reflecting on the architecture industry's contribution toward diversity, inclusion, and social justice in 2021

2021-12-23T13:05:00-05:00

Following a very turbulent 2020, the current year was filled with highs and lows as well. From the pandemic to socio-economical unrest, the architecture industry continued to navigate a year filled with learning and unlearning.

The rise of social justice and equity initiatives pushed on in 2021. As architecture firms, schools, and organizations proceeded to grapple with their involvement in and relationship to systemic racism and inequity, groups and individuals took it upon themselves to continue with their work towards detangling architecture from its history of oppression and injustice.

Architecture media became more than a medium for praising new projects and applauding the so-called "starchitects" of our time. It has become a medium to discuss social and cultural topics relating to race, diversity, and inclusion. As a platform, Archinect continues to report on the issues that impact our community and expand on social and cultural discourse relating to architecture. With the nu...

Indigenous tribes are making a push for commercial real estate investment in the hopes of building a future for their communities

2021-07-08T19:52:00-04:00

Native Americans have been systematically dispossessed of their ancestral lands for more than a century, thanks to federal land management policies. But a spate of new real estate projects highlights efforts to reclaim that territory, as tribes invest in land development in an effort to diversify their revenue base and support their members.

Only a handful of tribes have pursued ventures involving commercial property outside of gambling and many still reside in poverty-stricken reservations in the U.S. and Canada. A group from the Squamish Nation is behind Canada's largest development in Vancouver while others have made serious investments in tribal-controlled areas with the backing of some major corporate teammates.

The tribes have themselves been the frequent victim of commercial development schemes historically even occasionally leading to violence and mass protests in both countries. Now, recent developments are causing many to herald a tide change in Indigenous relations that may favor those "long-term leaders" investing in real-estate development now.

The Seattle Times has more on the effort here.

Protesters in Canada have toppled monuments to Queens Victoria and Elizabeth II

2021-07-06T21:21:00-04:00

Two statues of queens on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature were pulled down Thursday during a rally aimed at replacing Canada Day celebrations with actions in memory of hundreds of Indigenous children buried in unmarked graves at residential schools across the country. [...] The grounds were the destination of an Every Child Matters walk in Winnipeg on Canada Day afternoon to protest the fallout of Canada's residential schools system.

The demonstrators were part of a Canada Day protest meant to draw attention to issues surrounding the forced removal and integration of 150,000 indigenous school children begun during Victoria's rule of the former UK Dominion. 6,000 of the children are reported to have died, and the recent discovery of the remains of 215 in an unmarked grave at a site near Kamloops in British Columbia has renewed calls for the observance of the holiday to be canceled.

Similar scenes have played out throughout the US and UK recently in light of the George Floyd protests, Charlottesville, and other events that have caused a sea change in societies grappling with their own ugly histories of racism and colonization.

Thousands of people attended the demonstrations in Manitoba's capital, Winnipeg. More details on the protest can be found at artnet.

Bjarke Ingels issues statement explaining meeting with Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro

2020-01-23T14:39:00-05:00

Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has released a statement explaining his reasoning behind the decision to meet with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro last week.

In the statement, Ingels, founder and creative partner at the multi-national architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), explains that his decision to meet with Brazilian officials was aimed at avoiding "oversimplification of a complex world" while also pushing for "active engagement, not superficial clickbait or ignorance" in terms of the work the firm undertakes. The meeting with Bolsonaro, Ingels explains, came as part of a larger research mission undertaken with the sustainable tourism developer Nomade Group aimed at investigating the possibility of bringing green tourism initiatives to the northeast coast of Brazil.

The RAIC shares report on co-designing as reconciliation with Indigenous communities

2018-07-16T15:56:00-04:00

The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) has created a free, public report as a resource for architects, designers, clients, funders, and policy-makers involved in the creation of new infrastructure facilities and housing in First Nation, Inuit, and other Indigenous communities. The report focuses of four case studies located in Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec which exemplify the best architecture practices of co-designing as reconciliation.

In these four case studies, the community vision was developed through architects engaging in a shared design process in order to address injustices and give agency back to Indigenous people groups. You can read the full RAIC report here.

Former US Embassy Building Is Declared Culturally-Inappropriate for Canadian Indigenous Center

2017-06-20T19:20:00-04:00

Classical revival is perhaps the architectural style most identified with colonization. This building, which references Washington architecture, is a building of formal rooms, offices, and hierarchies, echoing structures of European authority.

This June the federal government announced that the US' former embassy building in Ottawa will become a space dedicated to Inuit, Métis and First Nations communities which the task force of the RAIC finds to be a deeply inappropriate space for an Indigenous Centre.

"Canada's Indigenous communities have, for too long, been forced into leftover spaces that fail to connect in any meaningful way to their cultures and unique connectivity to place" says the task force, composed of about 30 mostly Indigenous architects, architectural students, interns and academics.

Dr. Patrick Stewart, the chair of the task force suggests that the federal government should provide capital dollars for the design and construction of a structure based upon Indigenous knowledge and through the use of Indigenous architects.

Australian architects mourn the loss of Paul Pholeros, renowned housing equality advocate for Aboriginal communities

2016-02-03T21:05:00-05:00

[Healthabitat, the non-profit Paul Pholeros co-founded,] developed a model called Housing for Health...working with Aboriginal communities, conducting a survey of all housing and completing urgent repairs using mainly local Indigenous contractors, and adding whatever upgrades or repairs they can afford until the money runs out. The organisation has improved more than 8,000 houses – a third of Australia’s Indigenous-controlled housing stock – and with them the lives of 55,000 people.

Obama changes the name of tallest mountain from Mt McKinley to Denali

2015-08-31T15:49:00-04:00

The Obama administration will change the name of North America's tallest mountain peak from Mount McKinley to Denali, the White House said Sunday, a major symbolic gesture to Alaska Natives on the eve of President Barack Obama's historic visit to Alaska. By renaming the peak Denali, an Athabascan word meaning "the high one," Obama waded into a sensitive and decades-old conflict between residents of Alaska and Ohio.

"Alaskans have informally called the mountain Denali for years, but the federal government recognizes its name invoking the 25th president, William McKinley, who was born in Ohio and assassinated early in his second term."