When Architecture Meets Activism

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.

University of North Carolina at Pembroke sociologist Roger Guy ably uses Chicago’s Uptown as a case study of the emergence of activist architecture and advocacy planning in the mid-20th century.... The author’s enthusiasm for the many levels on which this compelling narrative unfolds complements his academic rigor in getting the details right.... This book provides an excellent opportunity for students to understand the history and philosophy of advocacy planning and activist architecture, as well as to absorb useful insights on the benefits and pitfalls involved with these practices.... [T]his work is an important contribution to the literature on the history of urban planning and architectural design. When Architecture Meets Activism articulates the politics, helps understand the people, and analyzes the professions that came together in Uptown during the 1960s and 1970s. It is a compelling narrative well worth the read., University of North Carolina at Pembroke sociologist Roger Guy ably uses Chicago’s Uptown as a case study of the emergence of activist architecture and advocacy planning in the mid-20th century.... The author’s enthusiasm for the many levels on which this compelling narrative unfolds complements his academic rigor in getting the details right.... This book provides an excellent opportunity for students to understand the history and philosophy of advocacy planning and activist architecture, as well as to absorb useful insights on the benefits and pitfalls involved with these practices.... [T]his work is an important contribution to the literature on the history of urban planning and architectural design. When Architecture Meets Activism articulates the politics, helps understand the people, and analyzes the professions that came together in Uptown during the 1960s and 1970s. It is a compelling narrative well worth the read., That said, this work is an important contribution to the literature on the history of urban planning and architectural design. When Architecture Meets Activism articulates the politics, helps understand the people, and analyzes the professions that came together in Uptown during the 1960s and 1970s. It is a compelling narrative well worth the read., Guy is at his best when analyzing the complicated lives and motivations of coalition members, primarily male leaders, whose stories are usually hidden in macro studies but are made visible here by his extensive use of interviews. . . . Guy's work challenges the view that access and participation alone equate to influence in decision-making., This is an excellent, thoroughly researched and well-written detailed historical account of a group of “advocacy” planners and architects who, in the 1960s, led the effort to revitalize Chicago’s Uptown, a community of poor white migrants from the South. Guy’s book presents a new perspective on urban renewal by uncovering the grassroots organizing role played by a group of radical architects and planners who led the effort to preserve community control over redevelopment in Uptown.  This is a ground breaking study that is well suited for urban history, geography, sociology, and planning courses.

Roger Guy is professor of sociology and criminal justice at University of North Carolina at Pembroke.