Olon Dotson
This is the second of two special features on the racial history of America’s industrial heartland.
INTRODUCTION: IN MEMORY OF JOHN THADIS DOTSON

Leake County Courthouse, Carthage, MS.
Only one storefront shows signs of activity on the square surrounding the Leake County Courthouse in Carthage, Mississippi. Once a thriving block of retail establishments, institutions and offices, all [...]

Olon Dotson
—With this posting we are pleased to publish a two-part investigation by African American architect Olon Dotson into the racialized nature of the cities of America’s decayed industrial heartland.
We feel this is an important, generally overlooked research, and are very pleased to present it here for the first time in print.
Editor
Despite the fact that [...]

David Stairs
“The professional tends to specialize and to merge his being uncritically in the mass. The ground rules provided by the mass response of his colleagues serve as a pervasive environment of which he is uncritical and unaware.”1
[...]

Wes Janz
In Part 1 of this two-part post, I called for a “humane architecture” and reflected on the challenges and potentials found when designers put people at the center of our work.
Among the individuals and architectures discussed: Mary Martha and a dormitory for border crossers returned to Mexico; Michael’s block in Camden, New Jersey; [...]

Wes Janz
1. It’s two years since the Midwess Distress Tour, a 6-day drivathon with architecture students, organized by Olon Dotson and me. To challenged places, abandoned lives, upstart efforts. Detroit, Flint, Gary, Chicago, East St. Louis, and Cincinnati. Written up as “Compared to What?” Posted on Archinect in early 2007.
Then, Olon mixed a 6-CD soundtrack [...]

David Stairs
A Profession, of sorts
I’ve never been a joiner. When I was eleven years old I signed up for the Boy Scouts. All my friends were in Scouts. It was the thing to do in those days. I soldiered on for three years, through weekly meetings, camping trips, merit badges, fundraisers and all. But as [...]

Catherine Jo Ishino
Hong Kong and PRC Design from the Reform Era (ca.1978)
In the next two sections, I will explore how China’s marketplace, citizenry, and identity have begun to transform with its entry into the overarching globalization narrative that has been taking place since the last part of the 20th century. Specifically, I will focus on [...]

Catherine Jo Ishino

Min Wang, 2008 Beijing Olympic events poster
Until recently, a positive view on the state of modern Chinese graphic design was difficult to find in the Western trade press. Hong Kong, under the rule of the British Empire up until 1997, was seen as simply mimicking and copying Euro-American works. The Mainland’s designs, under [...]

Foretelling the future has been professionalized. Once the domain of soothsayers, astrologists, and mountebanks, now, futurology has become the domain of designers and other improvers of humankind.