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When Architecture Meets Activism: The Transformative Experience of Hank Williams Village in the Windy City
Contributor(s): Guy, Roger (Author)
ISBN: 1498512410     ISBN-13: 9781498512411
Publisher: Lexington Books
OUR PRICE:   $120.78  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: November 2016
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Architecture | History - Contemporary (1945 -)
- Architecture | Urban & Land Use Planning
- Architecture | Individual Architects & Firms - General
Dewey: 307.760
LCCN: 2016033141
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6.2" W x 9.1" (1.35 lbs) 284 pages
Themes:
- Demographic Orientation - Urban
- Locality - Chicago, Illinois
- Geographic Orientation - Illinois
- Chronological Period - 1960's
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
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.