Can Buildings be Racist? A Critical Sociology of Architecture and the Built Environment

Abstract

Can buildings be racist? In the study of racism, there is extensive literature on racist popular culture. However, buildings and architecture, as potentially racist cultural products, are understudied. This article examines Spanish-Colonial Revival architecture in Southern California as an example of urban placemaking with racist origins and legacies. This article relies on archival research to examine how buildings can be just as, if not more, racist than other forms of visual culture. The built environment physically structures human activities and movements, but it operates in the background. This invisibility of the built environment as “culture” allows architects, builders, and other social actors to design structures that enforce racial boundaries both symbolically and physically. This article concludes with a discussion of how architecture and the built environment can be foregrounded in sociological research.