Designing for Public Life, Dialogue 4: A Primer on Race and Public Space

In this fourth Dialogue in the Designing for Public Life program series, Mabel O. Wilson will present her thoughts on how the history of the United States has always been directly tied to the history of race.

Wilson will present a primer on the nation’s history of race and public space to better understand what race is, where it comes from, and how it intersects with what is public. Reflecting on globalization and the current social construct of racial differences that establishes a range of hierarchies, she will review the complicated relationship of race and public space. By reviewing examples in NYC’s public realm and elsewhere, Wilson will speak about race as a framework of power that impacts how we live and work.

Speakers:
Mabel O. Wilson, Nancy and George E Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, and Chair of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia University.

Moderator:
Ann Marie Baranowski, FAIA, LEED AP, Founding Principal, AMBA

About the Speakers:
Ann Marie Baranowski is the Founding Principal of her eponymous NYC-based architecture firm, AMBA. Her practice is founded on the belief that culture as an investment embedded in the built environment is as essential as the physical infrastructure of our buildings and cities. Baranowski focuses on the intersection of public space and art. Working in the public realm, she has partnered on significant projects that set a national example for enriching urban life, including public art installations at Fulton Center and South Ferry Terminal for the NY Metropolitan Transit Authority, and as Museum Architect for the Brooklyn Museum of Art, directing the planning and implementation of the $32M Eastern Parkway Entrance to renew the Museum’s identity.

Mabel O. Wilson is the Nancy and George E Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and Chair of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University. She is a founding member of Who Builds Your Architecture? (WBYA?)—an advocacy project educating the architectural profession about the problems of globalization and labor. Wilson has authored Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture (2016) and Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums (2012). She co-edited the volume Race and Modern Architecture: From the Enlightenment to Today (2020). With her practice Studio&, she is a member of the architectural design team that recently completed the award-winning Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. For the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, she co-curated the exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America (2021).