Model Schools in the Model City

Reviews / Votes

[Wiley] illuminates complicated histories of Washington's school system and its buildings, specifically emphasizing the rise of Black educational facilities designed to inspire despite longstanding segregationist attitudes and planning policies.... Loosely spanning the period immediately aft er the Civil War up through the late 1970s, with a present-day epilogue, the book dives deep into records to unearth pieces of history, which, as Wiley stitches them together, reveal the struggles and successes of Black Washingtonians in achieving built monuments to academic greatness as well as a damning pattern of deliberate erasure of that same history by white preservationists. * The Architect's Newspaper * Original, impressively researched, and ambitious, Model Schools in the Model City is an important book, one that challenges shibboleths, particularly in the history of urban renewal. It will appeal to readers who are eager to learn more about Washington Black history, and the history of architecture, education, planning, and housing. -- Marta Gutman, City College of New York In Amber N. Wiley's capable hands, the school buildings of Washington, DC, past and present, classical and brutalist, become metaphor and monument to African Americans' quest for full citizenship rights (or a lack thereof). In beautiful prose and a profusion of images, she illuminates the connection between the built environment and the sociopolitical relations that gave rise to it. This is how architectural history should be done. -- George Derek Musgrove, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Model Schools for the Model City is a far-reaching, original, and (at times) personal story about architecture, education, and urbanism in Washington, DC. Although the federal government consistently obstructed progress in the overwhelmingly Black capital city, Black Washingtonians nonetheless managed to create spaces for their children to learn. Although Wiley chronicles many frustrations across the decades, she also showcases the ambition and inventiveness of parents, teachers, and architects through close readings of school buildings. Her engaging study brings to light previously underexamined intersections of design pedagogy, community activism, and Black heritage. Unaffected by fleeting academic trends, Wiley's deeply researched and intelligent book will be an enduring contribution to architectural history. -- Carla Yanni, Rutgers University-New Brunswick With vast ambition and the urgency of personal history, Model Schools in the Model City reveals a truth hidden in plain sight: the struggle for equal access to public education-long a route to freedom for Black Americans-was a battle over buildings. The power to shape the architecture of schools in the nation's capital, Amber N. Wiley compellingly argues, determined who would have access to the fundamental rights of democracy. This book is a stirring lesson in how the built environment records the hopes and frustrations of its society. -- Brian Goldstein, Swarthmore College