When Sidney Fiske Kimball’s book American Architecture was published in 1928, a peer reviewer at the time praised its vision by remarking that Kimball “recognizes both the body and soul of architecture.” This utterance was not simply high praise. Moreso, it was a reassertion of the central claim in Kimball’s book: that American architecture had a body and soul; that it had, in short, a distinct and definable identity. This podcast investigates how this idea of a distinct American identity was formed in connection with architecture, and architectural history, through Kimball’s book American Architecture. What does it mean to recognize a ‘body and soul of architecture’ in the nation building context of the 1920s? And what legacy has it left for us today? In our discussion of Sidney Fiske Kimball’s book American Architecture we bring forward examples from the text to understand how Kimball’s identification of “American Architecture” was constructed through the confluence of race, capitalism, labor, and settler colonialism. We argue that Kimball’s book uses these concerns to construct an origin story and historical myth for architecture that promotes white ways of being through the doctrine of progress.

Show Notes available at:

https://www.sahraah.com/race-podcast