The Achilles Heel of Cultural Hegemony
THE BACKGROUND ACQUIRES A VOICE
Students from communities historically marginalized within architectural education could increasingly carry those experiences into the institution themselves.
The people who had occupied the background of Modernism's landscape begin participating in reconstructing Modernism's institutions.
The story began with architects migrating. Their ideas traveled with them. Those ideas entered institutions. Institutions transformed those ideas into professional culture.
Professional culture transformed the physical environment. But people who often had little influence over their creation experienced the consequences of those environments.
Now the movement begins to reverse.
EUROPEAN MODERNISM - MIGRATION - AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS - PROFESSIONALIZATION - THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT - LIVED CONSEQUENCES -
COMMUNITY VOICES - STUDENTS - CED - SELF-CRITIQUE - RECONSTRUCTION
The knowledge produced at the edge begins traveling back toward the center. This may be the most important reversal of all.
The institution does not reach outward to help marginalized communities. Those communities begin reaching inward and changing the institution.
And this brings the Gestalt argument full circle.
The background does not become visible. The background becomes figure. The user becomes participant. The participant becomes student. The student becomes designer. The designer becomes critic. And the institution begins to see itself differently.
This is where reconstruction truly begins.
