Wednesday / October 17, 2018 / 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Hip Hop Architecture: Beyond Bricks and Mortar
SAIC Ballroom, Second Floor, 112 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago
Michael Ford, Assoc. AIA (Madison College in WI and BrandNu Design), is dedicated to stimulating cross disciplinary discourse between architectural practitioners, students and community members on the social and cultural implications of architecture on its inhabitants through lectures, workshops and exhibits. Ford’s Hip Hop Architecture Lecture Series uses three interconnected realms - education, professional practice and media - to expose the subconscious roles of celebrated modern architects and urban planners, such as Le Corbusier and Robert Moses, in the creation of the environments which necessitated hip hop’s birth. Ford’s multi-media lecture format uses a combination of music videos and a live DJ to extract hip hop lyric samples as dialogue, commentary and counterpoints to popular architectural history and theory. The juxtaposition establishes golden-era hip hop lyrics as a post-occupancy evaluation of inner-city residents’ inhabitance of modernists’ visions.
Michael is known as The Hip Hop Architect as he explores architecture and urban planning through the lens of hip hop culture. He is the creator of The Hip Hop Architecture Camp®, an international, award-winning youth camp which uses Hip Hop Culture as a catalyst to increase diversity in architecture. Ford’s work has been featured in a variety of places including The TODAY Show, Rolling Stone Magazine, ESPN’s The Undefeated, and Vibe Magazine. Ford is also a highly regarded speaker with keynotes at The American Institute of Architects national convention, South by Southwest Eco Conference, and a TEDx titled “Hip Hop Architecture as Modernism’s Post Occupancy Evaluation.”
This presentation is part of the 46th Annual NOMA Conference which takes place in Chicago from October 17 to 20.
