The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race

In her book The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race (JHUP, 2019), Adrienne Brown examines works produced by writers, painters, architects, and laborers who grappled with the early skyscraper’s outsized and disorienting dimensions. She explores its effects on how race was seen, read, and sensed at the turn of the twentieth century. A highly interdisciplinary work, The Black Skyscraper breaks new ground in analyzing the influence of race on modern architectural design, as well as considering the effects of these designs on the experience and perception of race.