Approximately one year ago, my hometown became ground zero for the event that would significantly alter the trajectory of racial discourse in modern America: the murder of George Floyd, or “Big Floyd” as we called him at Conga Latin Bistro, where he worked for many years. As an architect, I thrive on combining creative vision with the pragmatics of planning for—and protecting—public health, safety, and welfare. But for the past 30 years, in difficult times like these, I often seek guidance in another discipline: philosophy.
I’m a proud Gen Xer and a part of the Hip-Hop Generation with an eclectic philosophical archive that embraces diverse cultural influences, from I Ching, Tao Te Ching, and Art of War to Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau, and the Supreme Mathematics of the 5% Nation of Islam (Nation of Gods and Earths). In fact, hip-hop music and culture trace their origins to 5% “mathematics” being built upon in informal circular “ciphers” of poets, griots, B-boys, and musicians gathered on New York City street corners, brownstone stoops, subway stations, and public parks in the 1970s. According to 5 Percenters, each Arabic numeral has a unique significance and power that are inextricably linked to an Islamic principle connecting its origin, physical form, and ultimate manifestation.
For the better part of the past decade and particularly now with the convergence of COVID-19 and our national reckoning with racial injustice, I have been ruminating on an exploration based on the traditional 5 Percenter math lesson regarding the number 8: Build or Destroy.
Historically, humans have built societies, settlements, and sacred structures upon a foundation of spirituality and philosophy as expressed through the integration of arts and humanities into architecture. Although the “modern project” has effectively scrubbed expressive ornament and craft from our cities and built environment in favor of efficiency and standardization, we must endeavor to re-situate people, community, and cultural expression within the design process. To this end, philosophy can be both a basis and catalyst for creative thought particularly in times as uncertain as these.
“The science or act of Building means to add on productively and constructively to any said Cipher. Destroy, which is the polar opposite, means to do away with any and all things that are non-productive and destructive to any said Cipher. Just as the shape of the numeral ‘8’, Build or Destroy possesses the duality of two Ciphers, one positive and one negative. This duality exists in every aspect of life and must be identified in order to know what causes all things to occur that are below and above our level of Understanding…”
Sha Be Allah
The Source
May 8, 2013
Within this construct, the role of design professionals is vital to the re-institution and maintenance of balance in the world. Architects, designers, and artists are the most powerful and universal embodiment of the positive cipher. We imagine, plot, plan, innovate, create, and build. We are magical. Through our mind’s eye, we see what does not yet exist and have the organizational skills to bring the unseen into existence. This is our role in society. It is a sacred responsibility.
This past year has exposed many aspects of contemporary society as emblematic of the negative cipher Destroy. From climate change to the carceral state, white supremacy, income inequality, and the fight for racial justice, the dismantling of unjust, unsustainable systems and institutions that maintain the current social order is inevitable. The civil unrest, flames, and destruction that exploded here in Minneapolis at the apex of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protest movement were magnified through the suffering, isolation, death, and economic disruption of the pandemic.
This ubiquitous negativity that exemplifies the Destroy cipher is especially difficult for artists and creatives to navigate as it runs counter to our internal imperative to make, generate, produce, conserve, and create. It destabilizes and unbalances us, affecting our mental health and sanity. Thus, it is not for us to be on the frontlines of this type of conflict—in the streets—exposing ourselves to the ubiquitous violence and chaos that emanate from it.
Our role as creatives is to fully embrace and exemplify the Build cipher—to focus our attention and energy on the new world that must rise from the ashes, like seedlings that emerge from nutrient-rich soil in the wake of forest fires. We are the germinators of culture as expressed through the built environment. This is our ultimate purpose.
We are now called into prayerful mediation, intense visualization, and engaging conversation about the future that is to be created. Our work is imperative and essential to the continuity of society. Once the proverbial dust settles and the smoke clears, we must be ready to rise up—uprise—and fulfill our fundamental purpose by meeting this moment head on.
Incidentally, we find ourselves in a moment of historical symmetry. One hundred years ago, the world was in the waning days of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. After 24 months and multiple waves of an invisible plague ravaging society, the world began to emerge from darkness and isolation. Two years of anxiety and absence from the public square created pent-up economic demand and desperation for socialization that was unmatched at that point in American history.
In the mid-1920s, the magical era called the Jazz Age was born, and for the next decade, the Roaring ’20s exploded from cities like New York and Chicago, permanently transforming the production of art, music, science, and technology while ushering in a period of radical social transformation and the creation of a new social order, virtually unrecognizable from that of the previous decade.
Women cut their hair and exchanged Victorian era gowns for low-cut dresses. They celebrated their newly minted suffrage and independence by dancing all night to the latest tunes in racially integrated jazz clubs and sipping cocktails in underground, Prohibition-era speakeasies. Led by Black entertainers and dancers, like Josephine Baker, this flapper culture quickly spread throughout society to become the vanguard of modern, progressive expression.
Jazz geniuses like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington toured Europe spreading the soundtrack of this new era across the pond. Art Deco architecture emerged, moving pictures gained sound, penicillin battled disease-causing bacteria, and the Spirit of Saint Louis soared across the Atlantic.
Now to 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic is winding down and the social anxiety–driven, pent-up energy is palpable. We may be on the precipice of a new Roaring ’20s—the 2020s. As the current Destroy cipher topples institutional norms and attacks pervasive, structural inequality, our time to imagine, create, and Build the next iteration of modernity is approaching. Creatives can become proactive change agents by producing new ways of imagining the institutions and relationships that will be possible after the antiquated ones collapse.
Imagine a future founded in justice, shared responsibility, universal access to opportunity, and abundant resources all expressed through the creative arts and documented through the humanities. People-centric design will become standard practice and mag-lev trains, autonomous electric vehicles, and drone taxis will become primary means of transportation. Smart power grids will transport energy from ubiquitous rooftop solar and wind farms with high-capacity battery storage systems, replacing coal power plants and oil pipelines. Vertical farms and organic urban agriculture will replace industrial farms and chemical-based fertilizer. Solar hydro-panels paired with rooftop rainwater capture, storage, and filtration systems will eliminate our reliance on failing municipal infrastructure (see Flint, Mich.). Advanced mRNA technology will eliminate pernicious, chronic diseases like cancer and prevent new contagions from spreading.
The future that we deserve is on the horizon, within reach. To get there, we must constantly seek opportunities to expand our knowledge, intentionally pursue opportunities to elevate our consciousness, and courageously extend our arms to embrace this moment.
The views and conclusions from this author are not necessarily those of ARCHITECT magazine or of The American Institute of Architects.
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