A Rage in Harlem: June Jordan and Architecture

In the tense days leading up to the 2020 American elections, then-candidate for Pennsylvania State Senate Nikil Saval addresses a virtual audience at the Harvard GSD to tell a story about Black feminist writer June Jordan and a little-known project that resulted from the aftermath of the 1964 Harlem riot. The events of police brutality and community grieving made a lasting impression on Jordan, who, while known for her work as a poet, playwright, and activist, responded with a proposal for a multiple-tower housing design. hrough an unlikely partnership with R. Buckminster Fuller, Jordan’s “Skyrise for Harlem” project offered a Futuristic vision for Harlem that argued for environmental redesign: “. . . it is architecture, conceived of in its fullest meaning as the creation of environment, which may actually determine the pace, pattern, and quality of living experience.”