{"product_id":"the-black-skyscraper-architecture-and-the-perception-of-race-9781421429038","title":"The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHow did writers and artists view the intersection of architecture and race in the modernist era?\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWinner of the MSA First Book Prize of the Modernist Studies Association\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith the development of the first skyscrapers in the 1880s, urban built environments could expand vertically as well as horizontally. Tall buildings emerged in growing cities to house and manage the large and racially diverse populations of migrants and immigrants flocking to their centers following Reconstruction. Beginning with Chicago's early 10-story towers and concluding with the 1931 erection of the 102-story Empire State Building, Adrienne Brown's \u003ci\u003eThe Black Skyscraper\u003c\/i\u003e provides a detailed account of how scale and proximity shape our understanding of race.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver the next half-century, as city skylines grew, American writers imagined the new urban backdrop as an obstacle to racial differentiation. Examining works produced by writers, painters, architects, and laborers who grappled with the early skyscraper's outsized and disorienting dimensions, Brown explores this architecture's effects on how race was seen, read, and sensed at the turn of the twentieth century. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn lesser-known works of apocalyptic science fiction, light romance, and Jazz Age melodrama, as well as in more canonical works by W. E. B. Du Bois, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Aaron Douglas, and Nella Larsen, the skyscraper mediates the process of seeing and being seen as a racialized subject. From its distancing apex--reducing bodies to specks--to the shadowy mega-blocks it formed at street level, the skyscraper called attention, Brown argues, to the malleable nature of perception. A highly interdisciplinary work, \u003ci\u003eThe Black Skyscraper\u003c\/i\u003e reclaims the influence of race on modern architectural design as well as the less-well-understood effects these designs had on the experience and perception of race.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Adrienne Brown\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Johns Hopkins University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/01\/2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 280\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.35lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.20w x 0.90d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781421429038\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAdrienne Brown \u003c\/b\u003eis an associate professor of English and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Chicago. She is the coeditor \u003ci\u003eof Race and Real Estate\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Johns Hopkins University Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44436201767027,"sku":"9781421429038","price":59.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/files\/img_a78c01a9-a57e-4816-b615-d85a425b9f1f.jpg?v=1772893165","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/en-de\/products\/the-black-skyscraper-architecture-and-the-perception-of-race-9781421429038","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}