Reading Summary 1

In Sarah Schindler’s article “Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination and Segregation through Physical Design of the Built Environment,” Schindler talks about the built environment as a intentional exclusion or inclusion of certain groups. From the common person’s perspective, a low hanging bridge or a divided highway or even a bench with arm rests may not seem like a exclusionary pieces of architecture but Schindler goes on to explain that each is not as innocent as it seems. Intentional changes in architecture have been a part of the United States and across the world for decades.

Schindler begins by calling out a famous architect, named Robert Moses, who was notorious for building projects that included some form of architectural exclusion. She also criticizes the government for allowing projects that exclude people to be built. “Why have the Court, judges, and lawmakers—the entities usually tasked
with crafting and enforcing antidiscrimination law—failed to find fault with
these sorts of physical acts of exclusion?” (Schindler 1939). She backs her claims by providing numerous court case sources ranging from Buchanan v. Warley in 1917 to Dolan v. City of Tigard in 1994 to emphasize her point that architectural exclusion is already illegal and that actions should be taken to enforce the laws.

Schindler explains architectural exclusion as an intentional innovation to a work of architecture to exclude a certain group of people usually based on race or lack of wealth. The decision to build something that has the ability that does exclude is extremely easy to proclaim innocence even when there is an ulterior motive. Some of the most common exclusionary examples are building highways in certain locations, building park benches with arm rests and prohibiting public transportation.

Looping back around to Robert Moses, Schindler highlights a piece of his work that establishes a physical barrier to potential travelers. Jones beach is a critically acclaimed public park in New York that was built by Robert Moses. Moses wanted to limit the population and perhaps demographic of people that had access to it. Being a public park, Jones Beach could not really charge a fee for entrance or regulate the people coming in, so Moses had to be creative. Moses created bridges with low hanging overpasses to prevent public transportation from entering. He also protested a train stop coming from Long Island which would bring access to a whole new class of people. Schindler insists that there is anecdotal evidence that proves Moses’ true intent. All to often this is not the case. There are unmeasurable examples of other barriers that have been built that could have also been drawn up with  malicious intent.

One of the most common and attention grabbing features is constructing a wall to divide one part of the city from another. One of the most famous is 8 mile wall in Detroit, MI. The wall was built to “to separate an existing black neighborhood from a
new white one that was to be constructed…the Federal Housing
Administration provided financing for a new development project only if the neighborhood was sufficiently residential and racially segregated.” (Schindler 1955) Similar walls were built in New Haven, CT, Baltimore, MD, and Shakar Heights, OH. These walls make it very hard for interaction between residents across their respective sides of the wall. The wall in Shakar Heights is referred to as the “Berlin Wall for black people.” (Schindler 1959)

The article ends with the feel of a quote by Rafiki in the Lion King urging customers to see beyond what they can see. Schindler re-emphasizes that exclusionary features can be overlooked in everyday life. She also gives her purpose for writing the article. She aspires to educate about the faults of exclusionary architecture and says that Architecture needs to be regulated in order to bring people together instead of dividing them