Architecture as a "Labor of Love" (or just labor?)

This mug, with clever graphics designed by Spaghettee, is titled “The Evolution Of Man - Architect”—and while the designer’s meaning is clear (about the culmination of evolution), perhaps another interpretation can be….

that it’s also asking a serious question: “Is this the outcome to which all existence leads: architectural labor?”

The life of an architect is associated with long hours (and often no full weekends, and putting-off vacations—and, if they’re taken at all, they’re shortened). Working long days into late nights seems frequent in architectural offices—an aspect of professional culture that goes beyond showing one’s enthusiasm or commitment—and which can manifest in health challenges and life-imbalance.

LONG HOURS AND THE CULTURE OF THE “CHARETTE”

Late at night at the Yale Art & Architecture Building—and the lights are still burning. This view is from 1963, which is during the period (1958-1965) when Paul Rudolph was chair of Yale’s School of Architecture. He, along with the students (working at their drawing boards) might well have been in the building when this photograph was taken.

Among architecture students, there’s a saying:

You can always tell which building on campus is the Architecture School: it’s the only one where the lights are on all night.

The practice of endless hours, logged by architects, certainly seems to start in architecture school: most students remember working through the weekend and holidays, and the nights that stretch into mornings.

This is not a new phenomenon, and such behavior was known in 19th century: it is associated with the French art and architecture school, the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The practice has the testimony of language in the term “charrette” (a French word meaning cart or wagon.) At the end of an school assignment, a cart was sent around to the architecture school studios to collect the student’s work. Allegedly, students would jump onto the cart—even as it was wheeled away—to keep working on their designs until the last moment (when the work was finally delivered for use by the jury.) Out of this came phrases for drastic stretches of work to meet a deadline: one is said to be “working en charrette” or “doing a charrette.”

Tigerman’s memoir includes his reflections on Rudolph—as teacher, architect, and man—and describes the long hours that were expected of architecture school students.

Late in his life, Stanley Tigerman (1930-2019) released a pulls-no-punches memoir, Designing Bridges to Burn. The book is frank about Tigerman’s career, life, and the figures he encountered—-and that includes writing about his years as a student at Yale’s School of Architecture. [He was there in the middle of the era when Paul Rudolph was chair of the department, and he graduated in 1961.]

In Tigerman’s memoir, he tells of the time that he was, simultaneously, both a full-time student and also a part-time employee at Paul Rudolph’s combined office & residence on High Street (which was located not far from the school.) The book’s passages, below, are revealing for what they say about the time & labor commitment Rudolph expected of students, as well as about Rudolph’s own work ethic:

Not far from the Yale’s architecture school (where Paul Rudolph was chair of the department) was Rudolph’s architecture office on High Street: one large, loft-like space, situated in the top of a vintage building owned by the architect (to which Rudolph also added his residence.) Here, Tigerman had a part-time job working for Rudolph—as did some other Yale students. The commitment expected of students (shown in long hours, working day and night) was modeled for them by Paul Rudolph’s own work ethic.

“In those years, the architecture studio terminated its daily activities promptly at 2 am when the Yale radio station blared out the Yale anthem “Bright College Years.” Every night in an unanticipated explosion of collegiality, we all rose from our drafting-board stools to belt out Yale’s alma mater. Many of our group then reconvened at My Brother’s Place, the local architecture school hangout on Chapel Street across from the art school at Street Hall. I instead went to work at Rudolph’s atelier around the corner on High Street”

“Working in Rudolph’s office was an eye-opener. For those of us who thought that we had a strong commitment to architecture, what we engaged in was child’s play next to Rudolph’s personal work ethic. He toiled tirelessly night and day, intermittently striding the one short block from the studio to the architecture school whenever the spirit moved him. One never knew when he would show up. . . . but God forbid if one’s drafting board was unmanned when he arrived.”

“Working in Rudolph’s studio was a race against time for the rest of us as well. I thrive on it, but there was a price to pay. I was frequently in a state of sleep deprivation and looked it. No matter, I was at my drawing board in the architecture-school studio every morning when it reopened at 9 am, as were all of us.”

WORK-LIFE BALANCE?

Of course, such behavior doesn’t end with graduation from school. In the last couple of decades, the issue of “work-life balance” has become a rising subject of debate—including within the architectural profession. Sometimes that imbalance is self-imposed—and in a beautiful memorial tribute to his old teacher, employer, and friend, Tigerman assessed this aspect of Rudolph: “His personal tragedy lay in his expectations that architecture would offer him that which only life can deliver.”

The problems of architectural work are not limited to long hours (though that’s one of the most high-profile symptoms)—and some researchers and thinkers have been looking into the nature of architectural “labor.”

WAGNER AND DEAMER ON THE CULTURE OF ARCHITECTURE

We’re always interested in what Kate Wagner has to say. It would be too limited to call her an architecture critic, as that would seem to restrict her judgement to buildings (though she certainly addresses architectural design.) Kate Wagner is also one of the most astute observers of architectural culture: the overall systems, contexts, relationships, and assumptions from which our built environment emerges.

In several past posts we’ve pointed to articles Wagner has written—and reflected on and the issues she raised. These have ranged from the hegemony of open space planning (and the challenges it entails) -to- Brutalism (and its larger meanings)—a topic which she’s taken on again and again.

In an article in The Architect’s Newspaper, titled “People Power”, Kate Wagner reviewed Peggy Deamer’s recent book, ARCHITECTURE AND LABOR. Wagner not only reports on the book, but also contributes her own perceptions and insights.

ARCHITECTS’ WORK: REWARDING (BUT UN-REWARDED?)

A view of the architectural drafting room of Ferry & Clas—probably from the late 19th Century.

The book author, Peggy Deamer, is an architect and professor emerita of architecture at Yale—and the founding member of The Architecture Lobby, which describes itself as:

“. . . .an organization of architectural workers advocating for the value of architecture in the general public and for architectural work within the discipline. It believes that the work architects do – aesthetic, technical, social, organizational, environmental, administrative, fiduciary – needs structural change to be more rewarding and more socially relevant. As long as architecture tolerates abusive practices in the office and the construction site, it cannot insist on its role in and for the public good.”

And, it that spirit, Deamer has written ARCHITECTURE AND LABOR. In the introduction, she states her position and intentions for the book:

The new book by Peggy Deamer uses a provocative image: note the sign carried by the demonstrator in the cover photo..

“This book hopes to fill a huge and consequential gap in architectural thought and practice: the acknowledgment of the fact that architects labor—that our time in the office is work, that this work is monetized, and that monetization is part of our larger, national, economic equation. We might think that our design activity is art and not work; we might assume that we offer our spatial gifts to society from some exceptional position outside society itself; we might hope that our value to society transcends commerce—but no. We are part of the labor force. . . .”

And:

“. . -. .The fact that architects themselves are startled by the term "architectural labor" indicates how late, compared to professions like art, film, journalism, couture, and literature, we are to a substantive discussion of labor and its value. This book is not a how-to guide to creating robust professional practices. It is rather an examination of our befuddled concept of "architectural work" and that befuddlement's negative consequences on our various institutions.”

THE REALITIES OF ARCHITECTURAL WORK

Kate Wagner, in her review-essay on the book (and the issues it raises), gives her view of the actuality of the day-to-day work of architecture:

“Most of the practicing architecture is drudgery. . . .Most of the time, they’re sitting at the computer wrangling something called Building Information Management or drawing sections of insulation at a desk with several other people doing the same thing. This is not the creative calling one was promised as a 19-year-old. This is work, plain and simple. . . .”

And then points-out the disjunction between that reality, and how architects (and their staffs) view themselves and their position:

“And yet architects do not see themselves as workers. They see themselves as temporarily disadvantaged creatives, somehow distinct from the construction laborers who turn their drawings into reality. When architects do begin to think of themselves as workers, they open themselves up to a wide range of political possibilities, ones with profound potential to change the practice and face of architecture. . . .”

“We as a field are thus fortunate that there are now works like Peggy Deamer’s Architecture and Labor that help clarify, in no uncertain terms, our unflattering rules of engagement as participants in capitalist society. . . .”

“Much of Deamer’s work could be characterized as disciplinary myth-busting. . . .with a disquisition on the nature of architectural labor as labor, aiming to tear down the firewall between architects and the rest of the AEC world, or as Deamer succinctly puts it, “Architects design, contractors build; we do art, they do work.”

She (and the book) also point out:

“In distinguishing themselves from the building trades, architects not only fail to grasp the notion of their own precarity as laborers but also let slip the financial and wellness opportunities available to those trades through unions and different structures of ownership.”

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK—AND A CALL TO ACTION

Kate Wagner concludes with high assessment of Deamer’s book, Architecture and Labor—and an incitement to ask questions:

“Deamer does a wonderful job of answering questions related to the eldritch legal and organizational setbacks tied to the specific field of architecture. She asks and answers questions of labor—what it means in terms of architectural practice, how architects’ conceptions of themselves form over time, the history of architectural labor and its organizing bodies—but the time now has come to ask questions about labor power. Those are collective questions, and the only way to truly answer them is through action.”

An architect at his drawing board: an engraving published in 1893, illustrating an article about a new model of upright drawing board. With its counter-weighted parallel bar (replacing the traditional T-Square), built-in drafting tools ledge, and movable electric light, this would have been high-tech for it’s era. While this might be seen as improved equipment for the architect, the kind of analysis which Wagner an Deamer offer could lead one to characterize this as a way to increase labor productivity. Note that work would have been done standing-up, a practice more often found in European architecture and engineering offices.

BOOK INFORMATION AND AVAILABLITY:

Title:  Architecture and Labor

Author:  Peggy Deamer

Publisher:  Routledge

Format:  Paperback, 9” x 6”, 192 pages,

Illustrations: 65 black & white illustrations

ISBN:  9780367343507

Alternative Formats:  both hardcover and eBook versions are also available.

Publisher’s page for the book:  here

Amazon page for the book:  here

Barnes & Noble page for the book:  here

---

IMAGE CREDITS

NOTES:

The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation gratefully thanks all the individuals and organizations whose images are used in this non-profit scholarly and educational project.

The credits are shown when known to us, and are to the best of our knowledge, but the origin and connected rights of many images (especially vintage photos and other vintage materials) are often difficult determine. In all cases the materials are used in-good faith, and in fair use, in our non-profit, scholarly, and educational efforts. If any use, credits, or rights need to be amended or changed, please let us know.

When/If Wikimedia Commons links are provided, they are linked to the information page for that particular image. Information about the rights for the use of each of those images, as well as technical information on the images, can be found on those individual pages.

CREDITS, FROM TOP-TO-BOTTOM:

“The Evolution Of Man - Architect” Mug : from the Amazon page for that item; Yale Art & Architecture Building at night: courtesy of © J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10); “Designing Bridges To Burn” book cover: from the Amazon page for that book; Interior of Paul Rudolph’s architecture office on High Street in New Haven: photo by Yuji Noga, from the archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Ferry & Clas drafting room: via Wikimedia Commons; “Architecture and Labor” book cover: by the the publisher, Routledge; Engraved drawing of of a hand on a drawing board, with a ruling pen: from A Textbook on Ornamental Design (1901), via Wikimedia Commons; Architect standing at Drawing Board: a wood engraving published on May 25, 1893 in Teknisk Ukeblad, an engineering journal in Norway. It illustrates an article about a new kind of upright drawing board delivered by the firm J. M. Voith in Heidenheim a. d. Brenz (in south Germany), via Wikimedia Commons.

The Clear & Passionate Voice for Great Architecture— Especially Burroughs Wellcome

Kate Wagner’s essay—defending Paul Rudolph’s Burroughs Wellcome Building, and taking on the shallowness with which great architecture is often devalued—opens with a dramatic view of the Burroughs Wellcome Building by the distinguished architectural photographer Joseph Molitor. Image courtesy of Joseph W. Molitor architectural photographs collection. Located in Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives

A VOICE FOR SANITY IN ARCHITECTURE—LIKE NONE OTHER TODAY

Who is the most incisive, clear-eyed, and forthright critic on today’s architectural scene?

As an irrepressible voice for architectural sanity, KATE WAGNER has few rivals. Thus we were struck (and delighted) by her recent, brilliant defense of Paul Rudolph’s Burroughs Wellcome Building—one of the architect’s most exciting and masterful designs, which is now threatened with demolition—in her essay, “This Brutal World”

A sample image from the McMansion Hell website, in which a photo of a McMansion is analyzed by Wagner.

For those not familiar with Kate Wagner’s work, it’s always good to recount that she first came to prominence with her take-no-prisoners website, McMansion Hell—a space where her talent for giving undiluted assessments of the pretentions, impracticalities, and wasteful tastelessness of “McMansions” (and the culture that produced them) had ample space to be displayed.

If you’re not already an admirer of her analyses, this sampling will give you and idea of Wagner’s direct-as-nails rhetoric (as applied to one of the houses she was critiquing on that website):

“If you combine all of the insipid elements of the other houses: mismatched windows; massive, chaotic rooflines; weird asphalt donut landscaping; pompous entrances, and tacked on masses; you’d get this house. The more one looks at this house the more upsetting it becomes . . . . What sends this one over the top is its surroundings: lush trees and clear skies that have been desecrated in order to build absolute garbage.”

But her writings and wise advocacy have not just been about spotlighting overcooked (and undertalented) design. She has focused upon other vital issues such as land use, urbanism, residential space planning, and the history of architectural styles. Wagner has been a featured writer in Architectural Digest, The Atlantic, Huffington Post, Curbed, and other venues—and now can be read in The New Republic.

The essay appeared in the September 29, 2020 on-line edition of The Architect’s Newspaper-East.

DEFENDING PAUL RUDOLPH’S WORK—AND THE TREASURES OF GREAT ARCHITECTURE

Her essay, “This Brutal World” went well beyond considering the fate of that great building, Burroughs Wellcome—for she also offered a powerful attack on the cultural/economic world-view which places so little value on our country’s national treasures of architecture.

She starts by sharing her first powerful encounter, as a youngster, with a Paul Rudolph building: the amazing (and now disfigured) Orange County Government Center, in Goshen, NY—and how that impacted her entire life.

The Orange County Government Center, in Goshen, NY—as designed by Rudolph (and before its present disfigurement). Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith

“Many years ago, long before I became an architecture critic, I was a 14-year-old stuck in the back of a Buick crossover whose driver, my mother, had taken a wrong turn while looking for the Goshen, New York, Dunkin Donuts. We ended up in the parking lot of the most extraordinary building I had ever seen—Paul Rudolph’s Orange County Government Center, more commonly known as the Goshen Building.”

“. . . .Despite the outward signs of disrepair, the breath seized in my chest and as my eyes drifted over the compression and expansion of the building’s extruded masses, I realized that I had stumbled upon something extraordinary. I asked my mother, who grew up in Goshen and was visiting relatives there, if she knew what the building was. She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Ugh, that’s the DMV.’”

“When we returned home to North Carolina from our family reunion, I took to the computer and searched for the Goshen, New York Department of Motor Vehicles. Some clicking got me through to the Wikipedia page for Paul Rudolph, a mid-century architect who was once the Dean of the Yale School of Architecture. It was at that point I fell in love and became obsessed—not only with Rudolph’s work, but with architecture as a whole.”

“My life is marked by a threshold of before and after Paul Rudolph.”

At right are some of the buildings which Kate Wagner mentions in her article: architecture by Paul Rudolph that has been demolished, damaged, or—like Burroughs Wellcome and the Boston Government Service Center—are currently under threat. From top-to-bottom: Shoreline Apartments, Micheels Residence, Christian Science Center, Boston Government Service Center, Burroughs Wellcome.

And Kate Wagner tells of the actions that she began taking:

Photographic credits for the above five images, from top-to-bottom: Image courtesy of Joseph W. Molitor architectural photographs collection. Located in Columbia University, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Department of Drawings & Archives; © The Estate of Paul Rudolph, The Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith; Archives of the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation; Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith

“In 2010, I had stumbled on a news article about the pending demolition of the Goshen Building. I was devastated.”

“I got into many arguments with my mother, who at the time shared the majority opinion of Goshenites and thought the building an unlovable eyesore. I decided to do everything that I, a high-school sophomore hundreds of miles away, could to save it. I wrote letters to Goshen politicians, my first-ever writings on architecture; I donated my babysitting money to Docomomo. . . .I was a freshman in college. I was beginning graduate school when Orange County finished lobotomizing Rudolph’s building with a horrific contemporary addition. Reflecting on the loss years later, I can’t help but be upset.”

Her article goes into Rudolph’s career, but then notes the threats to the survival of other parts of his oeuvre—the latest of which, in jeopardy, is Burroughs Wellcome.

“Rudolph designed numerous houses around the country and a great many important projects including the Yale Art & Architecture Building, the Boston Government Service Center, and numerous buildings for the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. However, Rudolph lived long enough to see the tide turn against modern architecture, and his reputation tarnished as a result. The wrecking ball soon tore through Rudolph’s portfolio. Riverview, Buffalo’s Shoreline Apartments, houses in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Florida, and the Christian Science Organization Building rank among the fallen, while the Boston Government Service Center is under grave threat. The latest victim in this saga of devastation is his Burroughs Wellcome Co. Headquarters and Research Building in Durham, North Carolina.”

There is a great deal more in Kate Wagner’s fine essay (and we urge you to read it—in full—here.) But it might be good to close by sharing excerpts from some of the points she makes about the larger issues to which she brings her powerful focus:

“I. . . .think that I am a fool for believing that the tide of public opinion has changed enough to have prevented a major work of architecture from being carelessly demolished. I am an even bigger fool for believing that public opinion is what stops the destruction of works of art—that the core problem is awareness rather than money. . . .It doesn’t matter if Burroughs Wellcome is priceless, unique, a work of spatial, formal brilliance. To its owners it is a burden, a resource sink, a negative sign on a spreadsheet. . . .It is an asset of business, an object whose use-value will always be subornidated to its exchange value. . . .”

“I write this as a means of processing the impending loss of a building I care deeply about as a historian and as an individual, but also because I believe that the preservation community is facing a hard truth: Their battle is not against one bulldozer-happy company or developer but against an economic system that reduces architecture to an asset that sits upon an even more valuable asset—land. The court of public opinion has no say over the rule of the wallet, and even the success of a decade-long campaign to recuperate Brutalism from the trash heap of history cannot alone save Burroughs Wellcome from the wrecking ball. Time repeats itself—I once sat in a chair in my room on a laptop typing up letters and school assignments devoted to saving the Goshen Building; ten years later, I sit in my office and type this essay about mourning another building by the same architect. Both times, despite it all, grief is mixed with hope.”

Note: We hope that the demolition of the Burroughs Wellcome Building is not inevitably “impending”—and the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation is fighting to save it. Please see below about how you can help.

The threat to Burroughs Wellcome is part of a pervasive problem, as is illustrated here: the same web-page in The Architect’s Newspaper (on which Kate Wagner’s article appeared) also showed links to other articles—each of which is about the demolition of good and/or interesting modern buildings.

YOU CAN HELP SAVE BURROUGHS WELLCOME !

The Burroughs Wellcome building is threated with imminent demolition.

It’s loss would be a disaster—a titanic waste of our nation’s cultural heritage. Remember:

When a great building is destroyed, there are no second chances.

NOW— THERE ARE TWO THINGS YOU CAN DO:

• Sign the petition to save Burroughs Wellcome— Please sign it here.

• We can keep you up-to-date with bulletins about the latest developments. To get them, please join our foundation’s mailing list: you’ll get all the updates, (as well as other Rudolphian news.)—you can sign-up at the bottom of this page

Burroughs Wellcome’s famous, soaring entry lobby, which Kate Wagner had heard the present owners were going to use as part of a visitor’s center. That was before their current intentions, for demolition of the building, became known. Image courtesy of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, photograph by G. E. Kidder Smith

A SERIOUS THINKER TAKES ON "BRUTALISM"

The exterior of the main hall of the Kyoto International Conference Center in Japan, designed by Sachio Otani. Kate Wagner uses a photo of this building in the introduction to her new series of articles, in which she considers Brutalism and other key issues in architecture. A detail of a photograph by Daderot; photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Who Doesn’t Just Love McMansion Hell ?

You know it— McMansion Hell, Kate Wagner’s smart, funny, pointed, and insightful blog-website about what’s wrong (and occasionally right) with architecture, urbanism, and the environment. It’s most well-known for her “comedy-oriented takedowns of individual houses”, in which she shows, in her clear-eyed opinion, some of the most egregious “McMansions” and hilariously points out what’s false, ostentatious-without-taste or sense, or just dumb about them.

An sample, from a recent entry on the McMansion Hell blog, of Kate Wagner’s sharp analysis of a “McMansion”. This one is from June 13, 2019, which you can read in-full here.

Hmmmm. Maybe the only people who don’t like McMansion Hell are those who market such pretentious flab. If you aren’t a regular visitor to McMansion Hell, we recommend you do so—it is a constant eye-opener—and if you want a rich education, also explore the site’s archive.

More Than Satirical

Yes, via her sharpshooter aim at flatulent architecture (and its boosters), she does evoke hilarity (tho’ one that has an authentically public-spirited purpose). But it’s really worth underlining that she’s a penetrating and careful (and caring) thinker—one of the most articulate on the scene today. Her writings take on vital issues, and she readily and clearly (with delightful power) points out what’s full of pretension, hypocrisy, obscuring and inflated language, or just muddy thinking.

An Approach to Brutalism—One That’s Needed, NOW

Here at the Paul Rudolph Heritage Foundation, it got our attention when Kate Wagner announced that she was commending a 5-part blog series on Brutalism. That term— “Brutalism”—has been used against Paul Rudolph like a demolition battering ram—and, less frequently, as a term of praise (tho’ sometimes bafflingly, to those outside intricacies of the debate.)

The opening page, image, and paragraph of McMansion Hell’s 5 part series on Brutalism. We’re delighted that she starts off with a image of one of Paul Rudolph’s most fascinating projects: his campus design at UMass Dartmouth.

She explains the need for a thoughtful approach to the phenomenon (and built works) of Brutalism, explaining:

I’ve been a spectator to this debate since I first lurked in the Skyscraper City forums as a high school freshman, ten years ago, when Brutalism itself sparked the interest in architecture that brings me here today. I have, as they say, heard both sides, and when asked to pick one, my response is unsatisfying. Though my personal aesthetic tastes fall on the side of “Brutalism is good,” I think the actual answer is  it’s deeply, deeply complicated. 

And insightfully adds (and questions): 

Brutalism has a special way of inspiring us to ask big and difficult questions about architecture. “Is Brutalism good?” is really a question of “is any kind of architecture good?” - is architecture itself good? And what do we mean by good? Are we talking about mere aesthetic merits? Or is it more whether or not a given work of architecture satisfies the purpose for which it was built? Can architecture be morally good? Is there a right or wrong way to make, or interpret, a building? 

 She declares the need to approach this topic with the subtlety it deserves—and the urgency it demands::

I have bad news for you: the answers to all of these questions are complicated, nuanced, and unsatisfying. In today’s polemical and deeply divided world of woke and cancelled, nuance has gotten a bad rap, having been frequently misused by those acting in bad faith to create blurred lines in situations where answers to questions of morality are, in reality, crystal clear. This is not my intention here. 

Existential questions aside, there are other reasons to write about Brutalism. First, while we’ve been hemming and hawing about it online, we’ve lost priceless examples of the style to either demolition or cannibalistic renovation, including Paul Rudolph’s elegant Orange County Government Center, Bertrand Goldberg’s dynamic Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago, and the iconic Trinity Square, Gateshead complex, famous for the role it played in the movie Get Carter. My hope is that by bringing up the nuances of Brutalism before a broad and diverse audience, other buildings on the chopping block might be spared. 

 And promises:

This is a series on Brutalism, but Brutalism itself demands a level of inquiry that goes beyond defining a style. Really, this is a series about architecture, and its relationship to the world in which it exists. Architects, as workers, artists, and ideologues, may dream up a building on paper and, with the help of laborers, erect it in the material world, but this is only the first part of the story. The rest is written by us, the people who interact with architecture as shelter; as monetary, cultural, and political capital; as labor; as an art; and, most broadly, as that which makes up the backdrop of our beautiful, complicated human lives. 

Yes, this series is going to be an absorbing adventure. Kate Wagner is not only examining Brutalism, but also taking-on some of the most vital questions around architecture—and we look forward to future installments!