Building Character

Reviews / Votes

Beautifully argued, elegantly written, and extremely provocative . . . based on wide reading, careful archival research, and a great deal of reflection well outside of the ordinary contours of architectural history. . . . it should be used as an exemplar, one that could open up discussions about more recent architectural discourses and historical approaches-not to mention pedagogy. * The Plan Journal * Building Character . . . provides a revisionist history that recovers the ways that architectural organicism provided a rationalist model of design to consciously relate the perceived racial and architectural 'characters' of a nation to the people they served. By examining the ethnographic histories of figures important to architecture including Wright, Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Gottfried Semper, and William Lescaze, Davis revises the Western canon to account for the role of racial ideas. * Architect Magazine * In this much-needed book, Charles Davis situates discourses of race and nationalism within the context of architectural history and historiography, bringing visibility to race and its impacts on architectural style and building typology. Building Character is an innovative and compelling exploration of the race concept as a fundamental issue within the study of modern architecture. -- Milton S. F. Curry, University of Southern California By investigating how race shapes historical meaning and cultural associations of architectural forms, systems, and discourses, Davis makes an outstanding contribution to current debates in architectural history and theory. This book is a groundbreaking effort, an incomparable study. -- Mabel O. Wilson, Columbia University