{"id":3406,"date":"2014-11-09T19:16:32","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T02:16:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=3406"},"modified":"2014-11-10T07:02:03","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T14:02:03","slug":"is-americas-civic-architecture-inherently-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=3406","title":{"rendered":"Is America’s Civic Architecture Inherently Racist?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I personally don\u2019t think that it is. However, Denver Post<\/em> Fine Arts Critic Ray Mark Rinaldi gives the opposite impression to thousands of readers via a recent opinion piece called \u201cDid Diversity Miss the Train in Union Station Architecture<\/a>?\u201d The Union Station in question is Denver\u2019s newly refurbished central rail hub, originally built in 1881 with some alterations in the 1890s. Mr. Rinaldi suggests that the station\u2019s \u201cneo-classical mix of styles\u201d is off-putting to ethnic minorities, and hence discourages them from using this most central of Denver\u2019s public places. Reader reaction was swift and abundant, numbering over 300 online posts. Respondents overwhelmingly condemn Mr. Rinaldi\u2019s argument as uninformed, illogical, ridiculous, bizarre, crazy, idiotic, asinine, moronic, and in itself divisive and racist. Mr. Rinaldi himself is diagnosed as suffering from liberal stupidity, liberal self-loathing, liberal educational indoctrination, liberal superiority syndrome, and several other mental disorders associated with liberalism. Some readers liken the piece to a parody from The Onion<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Union<\/a>

Denver’s Union Station (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

Assuming that Mr. Rinaldi\u2019s article is on the level, his particular critique of Union Station redevelopment, combined with the apoplectic reactions of his readers, derails a potentially important conversation about the extent to which urban built environments are meaningfully constituted and interpreted by citizens<\/em><\/strong>, and the degree to which cultural diversity should matter in urban placemaking<\/em><\/strong>. More on this below, but first some additional background:<\/p>\n

Denver\u2019s Union Station<\/a> is a mash-up of Romanesque, Classical Revival, and Beaux-Arts architectural styles. Located at the end of a terminating vista in Lower Downtown, the building is a marvel to behold. Mr. Rinaldi spent some time one weekend counting patrons and discovered that the user population for the station\u2019s bars, restaurants, and other amenities is overwhelmingly white. This should come as no surprise for veteran observers of Denver placemaking. Upscale development rules in this part of the city, aided and abetted by the Downtown Denver Partnership<\/a>\u2019s interest in attracting Millennials<\/a>. Mr. Rinaldi is certainly right that Union Station is \u201cprogrammed\u201d for people with money. And although Denver has a \u201cgrowing middle class of minorities,\u201d including \u201cplenty of blacks and Latinos\u201d who can afford to go there, Mr. Rinaldi goes a bit further to speculate that the station’s architectural renovation repels this demographic. The building\u2019s \u201csymmetry, arched windows, and ornate cornice and stacked stone walls\u201d evoke European colonial empires fueled by slave labor. The rewired gilded chandeliers and polished marble symbolize an Old World that was elitist and exclusive. The whole scene harkens back to an early 20th century America rooted in ethnic segregation and class exploitation.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rinaldi notes that there\u2019s nothing in the station\u2019s update that \u201cnods\u201d to an increasingly diverse and multicultural present. For example, there are<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2026no interior walls in the bright colors of Mexico, no Asian simplicity in the remix. There are no giant sculptures by African-American artists bonused into the lobby, no murals on the basement walls.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s also no explicit nod to Native American (specifically, Cheyenne and Arapaho) people and cultures on whose ancestral land the station sits and whose ancestors were brutally displaced to clear the way for railroads in the West. Mr. Rinaldi doesn’t mention that particular omission, but he continues with this:<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no traditional Mexican restaurant, no soul food restaurant, no sushi bar, as if no one noticed that the Mexican-American, African-American, and Asian-American families that operate those places across the city are also our best food purveyors.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Denver's<\/a>

Denver’s Union Station, Interior (D. Saitta)<\/p><\/div>\n

Mr. Rinaldi rightly notes that there are many choices that the station\u2019s owner, the Denver Regional Transportation District<\/a> (RTD), could have made in rehabbing and programming the venue. He laments that none of the choices respect RTD\u2019s diverse ridership, which is largely minority-based. He suggests that other choices\u2014like a recreational facility, playground, day-care center, farmer\u2019s market, cultural facility (e.g., museum), and some affordable dining options\u2014might have made the place more appealing to a broader demographic. Mr. Rinaldi concludes with a couple of dramatic rhetorical flourishes: RTD has “created a monster of separation\u201d that has “defined us narrowly, darkly, negligently.\u201d<\/p>\n

To his credit Mr. Rinaldi recognizes that this is a “dangerous” discussion. He acknowledges the risks associated with racially categorizing people based on skin color (coincidently, the subject of a special exhibit now showing at Denver\u2019s History Colorado Center<\/a>). If Mr. Rinaldi was looking to enter dangerous territory he certainly succeeded, as evidenced by the hundreds of overwhelmingly negative online responses to his column. He clearly struck a nerve. Interestingly, the 13 reader responses published as letters in two different print editions of the Denver Post<\/em> (see here<\/a> and here<\/a>) are, in stark contrast to the online reactions, much more balanced in their evaluation. It seems as if Post<\/em> editors were intentionally looking to reclaim and reset a potentially useful conversation that was never established online. The published letters are evenly split between six people who excoriate Rinaldi for his crude stereotypes about culture and his cluelessness about the purpose of historic preservation (e.g., it should be “authentic” and faithful to original construction), and seven people who compliment him for provoking thought or agree that the station\u2019s renovation is a missed opportunity to create an inclusive, energized public space in Denver’s Lower Downtown.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m inclined to accentuate the positive. Mr. Rinaldi\u2019s piece is certainly clumsy in several regards, e.g., dropping ethnically themed restaurants into a public space does not an intercultural city make<\/a>. His rhetoric is a tad overheated in places. His overall framing of the key issues with Union Station development could have been better. Still, I admire the courage it took to write something that makes such an inviting target for the trolls and troglodytes among us. As mentioned at the top of this post, at the very least Mr. Rinaldi challenges us to think about the meanings<\/strong><\/em> that public buildings and places have for people of different cultural backgrounds and life experiences. I would add public parks and other designed landscapes to the mix, as well as historic monuments and memorials. Humans are, as any anthropologist will tell you, meaning-making and meaning-detecting animals. We read visual cues of inclusivity and exclusivity in all of our cultural products<\/a>. Even the most seemingly benign design choice can be loaded with positive or negative associations depending on the personal background and lived experience of citizens. We don\u2019t need white people to point this out. Even non-white people, among them distinguished architects and planners, will tell you as much (e.g., see here<\/a> and here<\/a>). The planning and design stakes are especially high when it comes to urban places that are intended to be public. If, as some researchers suggest, there\u2019s a correlation between racial equity and overall urban prosperity<\/a> (for a sampling of scholarly views, see here<\/a>), then it\u2019s certainly reasonable to worry about racial inequities in access to, and use of, public space. The sooner that planners, developers, architects, and builders of all ethnic backgrounds realize this and achieve\u2014as one Denver Post<\/em> letter writer enlightened by Mr. Rinaldi’s piece put it\u2014a \u201cdiversity awareness,\u201d then the better our urban built environments are likely to be.<\/p>\n

This essay was originally published at <\/em>Planetizen<\/a>. It was re-posted from here to <\/em>Sustainable Cities Collective<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I personally don\u2019t think that it is. However, Denver Post Fine Arts Critic Ray Mark Rinaldi gives the opposite impression to thousands of readers via a recent opinion piece called \u201cDid Diversity Miss the Train in Union Station Architecture?\u201d The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4,6,20,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture","category-denver-urbanism","category-placemaking","category-urban-studies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-SW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3406"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3415,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3406\/revisions\/3415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}