Representing the “Architextural” Musings of June Jordan

In the fall of 1970, the Black feminist poet, teacher, and activist June Jordan traveled to Italy as a Rome Prize recipient in the category of Environmental Design ( We’re On 153).1 She was awarded the prize for work that grew out of her collaboration with the architect R. Buckminster Fuller. Jordan’s connection with Fuller began in 1964, when Jord... See more

During this formative time, she developed the roots of what one historian has called her “ecosocial” interpretation of the built environment, which considered architecture and the built environment to be an extension and manifestation of human ecology.5 This preference for the social led her to elevate Buckminster Fuller’s ecological utopianism ove... See more

Philosophers and practitioners of architecture have long studied the relationship between physical spaces and ritual, ritual and the creation of culture, culture and the embodiment of thought.

It’s why, as a complete novice to the field, one of the first things you learn is that architecture is an irreducible mode of thinking in its own right . It’s... See more

June Jordan, The Poetry of Design

Jordan would keep integrating media: “‘These ideas have to reach beyond architecture,’ she said, ‘beyond urbanism, beyond the academy, we need to reach the masses, we need to reach the people,’ and her response was writing in images. (...) She didn’t have training in drawing, as she had had nobody to pay for her to... See more

All these losses, for me, carry equal weight, precisely because, for Black, research and writing about building held as much transformational potential as design and construction. Indeed, it might be true that, for Black, such a duality did not exist. Perhaps, for him, writing and spatial thinking were one and the same. This is what most excites me... See more