On Thursday December 13th, 2018, join the Harvard Alumni Architectural and Urban Society for a tour of the Center of Architecture’s new exhibition “Close to the Edge: Birth of Hip Hop Architecture", led by curator, Sekou Cooke.
From the Center of Architecture:
Hip-hop is a cultural movement established by the Black and Latino youth of New York’s South Bronx neighborhood in the early 1970s. Over the last five decades, hip-hop’s primary means of expression—deejaying, emceeing, b-boying, and graffiti—have become globally recognized creative practices in their own right, and each has significantly impacted the urban built environment. Hip-Hop Architecture produces spaces, buildings, and environments that embody the creative energy evident in these means of hip-hop expression. Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture exhibits the work of students, academics, and practitioners at the center of this emerging architectural revolution.
Tickets: $5
LOCATION
Thursday December 13th, 4:00 PM
AIANY Center For Architecture
536 LaGuardia Place
New York, NY
Sekou Cooke
Sekou Cooke is an architectural practitioner and educator based in Syracuse, NY. He is currently Assistant Professor at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture where he teaches design studios and seminars that value breadth of exploration over formulaic production. Through his professional practice, sekou cooke STUDIO, he brings thoughtful processes and rigorous experimentation to a vast array of project types from commercial and residential works in New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, to mixed-use projects and tenant improvements in California, to speculative developments in Liberia and his native Jamaica.
Sekou’s current research centers on the emergent field of Hip-Hop Architecture, a theoretical movement reflecting the core tenets of hip-hop culture with the power to create meaningful impact on the built environment and give voice to the marginalized and underrepresented within design practice. This work has been widely disseminate through his writings, lectures, and symposia, and will be the central focus of an upcoming exhibition entitled, Close to the Edge: The Birth of Hip-Hop Architecture, on view from October 1, 2018 to January 12, 2019 at the AIANY Center for Architecture.
Through his research, practice, and other academic endeavors, Sekou hopes to leave an equally lasting impact on ivory towers and underserved communities. His ultimate goal is mastery of craft and world domination.
Sekou holds a B.Arch from Cornell University, an M.Arch from Harvard University, and is licensed to practice architecture in New York and California.