When architecture meets activism : the transformative experience of Hank Williams Village in the Windy City / Roger Guy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Guy, Roger, 1960- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Architecture and society--Illinois--Chicago.

Architecture and society.

Architects and community--Illinois--Chicago.

Architects and community.

Social advocacy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (285 pages) : maps

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Lexington Books, [2016]

Summary:

This social history and community study documents the events surrounding the attempt by community members, activists, and VISTA architects to resist the planned construction of a community college in the neighborhood of Uptown. The planner and architect are seldom envisioned as advocates for the urban poor. However, during the 1960s, New Left planners and architects began working with marginalized groups in cities to design alternatives to urban renewal projects. This was part of a national advocacy planning movement that was taking shape in urban areas like Chicago. Inspired by critics of the Rational-comprehensive model of planning, advocacy planners opposed the imposition of projects on neighborhoods often with no collaboration from residents. One example of this resistance was Hank Williams Village--a multi-purpose housing and commercial redevelopment project modeled after a southern town. The Village was an attempt to prevent the displacement of thousands of southern whites by the planned construction of a community college in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood. While the plan for the Village failed to win support of the local urban renewal board, the work performed by the young VISTA architects became instrumental in their subsequent career trajectories and thus served as formative personal and professional experience.

Contents:

Introduction: uncharted territory : architects and planners as activists

Urban renewal, advocacy planning, and community design centers in the United States

The historical, commercial, and physical evolution of uptown

Staging contentious conflict : uptown's diversity, appalachian migrants, and the anatomy of resistance

Architects and activists converge on the Windy City : a confluence of people and events

The uptown community design center, and plan for Hank Williams Village

A "modern day Christ with a southern drawl" : chuck geary and the protracted fight for Hank Williams Village

Divergent trajectories and lasting effects : the indelible mark of VISTA and the uptown experience

Advocacy planning and activist architecture : then and now.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed October 31, 2016).

ISBN:

1-4985-1243-7