Guest Blog | A Challenge to the MSA and All Architectural Institutions
BLM_MSA is a student-run group at the Manchester School of Architecture responding to issues of racism and inequalities in the built environment.
We are a group of architecture students who formed in response to the Black Lives Matter movement and are addressing how issues of systemic racism, white supremacy and colonialism relate to architecture and the built environment. The silence from architectural institutions in the UK over summer 2020 was justified by generic university posts about Black Lives Matter, including our own school the Manchester School of Architecture (MSA). However, as students and future architects, this response is inadequate in recognising the conscious and unconscious role architecture plays in perpetuating socio-economic and political issues. Therefore, we decided that work needed to be done, both by students in a bottom-up approach and for students by educational leaders who have the responsibility to lead by example.
As final-year Master in Architecture students, we are still looking to expand our involvement once the 20/21 academic year starts. From the experiences we bring from our undergraduate architecture schools, including the University of Nottingham, the University of the West of England Bristol and the University of Virginia, it is clear that the issues facing the MSA can be applied across all architectural institutions, including those in the UK. We want past, present and future students to be critical of the education they receive and reflect on how it can be improved and diversified. We also presented a list of initiatives and proposals for the coming school year to address issues identified within the MSA, including improving resources for Black and minority students, diversifying teaching staff and invited lecturers and increasing outreach to colleges, to name a few. Our challenges for the next academic year will include holding the school accountable to the objectives we have agreed on while encouraging authentic allyship across all years at the MSA.
Decolonising design education, history, technology and theory
One of our initiatives for the next academic year is to decolonise design education in terms of theory, history and technology. This is a major undertaking, one that will require constant feedback, from students to architecture faculty, so that progress can be tracked as changes are made at the MSA. There is no model architecture school, no ‘right’ way to go about reassessing what is valued as architectural knowledge. However, we believe that this is a necessary step to encourage a critical approach to architectural education which has relied on the widely-accepted ‘Eurocentric’ view. Based on our own student feedback, architectural examples within the MSA have been narrow in the past, focusing on examples from the Western canon rather than expanding to include examples which reflect its own diverse student body.
Decolonising design education will mean that all modules must be critiqued and restructured to include voices and theories from a more diverse set of people. As well as focusing on work produced by Western architects, firms and researchers, our knowledge pool should be broadened to include other countries in South America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It is imperative to add that when looking at work from other continents and regions, it should be from the perspective of those from those countries. Time and time again, numerous UK architectural institutions teach the history of African architecture from a Eurocentric viewpoint; this is damaging and misleading as it is a one-sided perspective.
When most students recall being taught about African Architecture in their compulsory history modules they can recount slide after slide of mud huts, shanty towns and the Great Pyramids of Giza. Pre-colonial architecture in Africa (e.g. Sudano-Sahelian architecture, the Zulu Kingdom and the Benin Empire) in the mind of our educators ceases to exist. Many architecture students are unaware of modern African architecture, so much so that watching Marvel’s Black Panther movie was the first time most architecture students became aware of the Afrofuturist architecture movement depicted in the fictional city of Wakanda. This lack of awareness is both a loss for the academic staff as well as the students, who are missing a key part of modern history which can only add to their education and future careers.
Examples of Afrofuturist architecture: the Mausoleum of Agostinho Neto, Angola (left), the Bank of Central African States, Cameroon (right) and the Pantheon of Martyrs of the Revolution, Burkina Faso (below).
The need to diversify across all courses at the MSA is imperative to create tangible change within the school of architecture so that issues surrounding systemic racism and colonialism are not just offered as electives but embedded within the programmes- from the reading lists to the atelier projects. Additionally, all modules should aim to look deeper into the communities we are designing for. It is essential that students are taught how to design for a place by engaging with local communicates and tackling topics such as access to public transport, adequate green spaces, housing inequalities and gentrification issues. As many students will eventually work in diverse cities such as London and Manchester, they need to be taught beyond their own experiences; especially if their design team fails to reflect the diversity of the area they are designed for.
Moving Forward
While we recognise that the issues of systemic racism and white supremacy are deeply rooted within our society and cannot be solved overnight, by organising ourselves and working collaboratively with people across the profession, we aim to move beyond ‘performative allyship’ and into ‘transformative action’. Conversations about the relationship of architecture - racism have to keep momentum both in the academic environment and in practice so as to encourage change. We hope that the legacy left by this collective we have created will inspire the next generation of students at MSA and others studying at UK institutions.
If you want to know more, stay informed on our progress and support this movement, please follow us on Instagram: @blm_archmsa.
Image Sources:
B., Oscar (2018) Mausoleum of Agostinho Neto [Online Image] [Accessed on 08/09/2020] https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g293763-d4137846-Reviews-Mausoleum_of_Agostinho_Neto-Luanda_Luanda_Province.html#photos;aggregationId=101&albumid=101&filter=7&ff=350910585
Messy Nessy Chic. (2020) Bank of Central African States, Cameroon. [Online image] [Accessed on 08/09/2020] https://www.messynessychic.com/2020/06/19/a-brief-compendium-of-amazing-african-architecture/
Senevi, I. (2012) Memorial to the Martyrs, Ouagadougou [Online image] [Accessed on 08/09/2020] https://www.flickr.com/photos/isurusen/7843942048/