Routledge Diversity among Architects: From Margin to Center

Diversity among Architects presents a series of essays questioning the homogeneity of architecture practitioners, who remain overwhelmingly male and Caucasian, to help you create a field more representative of the population you serve. The book is the collected work of author Craig L. Wilkins, an African American scholar and practitioner, and discusses music, education, urban geography, social justice, community design centers, race-space identity, shared landscape, and many more topics. Review "People, places and politics are central to all architecture. Social equity and front-and-center participation can only be created if talent can be trained, heard and flourish. Craig’s essays forcefully establish that using bolt-cutters to remove the shackles of our non-diverse architecture profession is essential if the social equity of diverse creation is to thrive. Read these essays with your eyes; understand them with your heart; act with your color-blind choices. Let his messages spread like a virus and infect us all." - Jeffrey A. Scherer, FAIA, Founding Principal, MSR "Spanning three decades, Craig Wilkins’ essays, ranging in tone from playful and rebellious to critical and combative, reflect his evolving intellectual memoir on the complexities surrounding diversity and architecture. From the historic Million Man March to the trajectory of the Hip Hop phenomenon and its ability to empower the marginalized and disenfranchised in the construction of a just society, Wilkins, a designer with activist tendencies as well as a scholar and cultural critic, challenges conventional lenses that frame our world." - Kathryn H. Anthony, Ph.D., ACSA Distinguished Professor, School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Author of Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession (University of Illinois Press, 2001, 2008). "Craig Wilkins is a visible man who is so right about what is so wrong in the profession and schools of architecture. The future―our future―will be shaped in the space among monolithic institutions and the people whose roots, passions, and talents are seen by many to occupy the fringe. Risk resides in this space, of course, and Wilkins engages it fully, helping us to imagine new practices, curricula, and potential. As brotha Craig asks: ready for a little sumpin’ sumpin’ special?" - Wes Janz, PhD, RA, Professor of Architecture, Ball State University About the Author Dr. Craig L. Wilkins, architect, activist, artist, and author, serves on the faculty of the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning. The former director of the Detroit Community Design Center and Hip Hop architectural theorist is recognized as one of the country’s leading scholars on African Americans in architecture. His work explores the various social, cultural, political, historical, and aesthetic contributions of people of color with the kind of broad and deep insight that derives from three decades of professional and academic experience in the field. In addition to numerous essays and articles, Dr. Wilkins is the author of the multiple award-winning The Aesthetics of Equity: Notes on Race, Space, Architecture, and Music and co-editor of Activist Architecture: The Philosophy & Practice of Community Design Centers. In 2010 he was named a Kresge Fellow for Literary Arts, recognizing his contributions in the field. Dr. Wilkins received his doctorate from the University of Minnesota, where he was later selected as one of 100 Alumni of Notable Achievement of the last 100 years by the College of Liberal Arts; his masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and his bachelors from the University of Detroit School of Architecture.