20 Questions With Sekou Cooke
5 min read or 40 min watch Sekou Cooke is a Jamaican-born architect, educator, author, and curator. He is the newly appointed Director of the Master of Urban Design program at UNC Charlotte and a recipient of the 2021/2022 Nasir Jones HipHop Fellowship at the W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University. His current research centers Hip-Hop Architecture, a theoretical movement that reflects the core tenets of hip-hop culture onto the built environment and gives voice to marginalized people in the design practice. He is the founder of the Sekou Cooke Studio.
Civic Design Center is celebrating our 20 Year Anniversary with 20 Questions from some fellow advocates and idols.
This is a screenshot of Gary Gaston interviewing Sekou Cooke on Instagram Live
“I focus on community empowerment. How can we get communities to a level of power where they are doing the design work themselves?”
The following interview is an edited and distilled version of the live interview that was held on April 6, 2021 at 11:30 am central. You can view the full 40 minute interview on IGTV.
What city do you call home? Talk about how that has influenced you.
Syracuse is actually the smallest city that I've ever lived in. I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, I've lived in San Francisco, Boston, Rome for a few months. It’s a really beautifully situated city in central New York. A lot of people have left Syracuse to find something and came back to revitalize the city. It has a lot of great people and amazing energy.
You are taking a new position at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Tell us a little bit about the new role and the new program!
I’ve accepted a new position as an associate professor at UNC Charlotte and I’ll be directing their Urban Design Program. The program was started eleven years ago under new urbanist principles. This is a program that is small and nimble but it has so much potential and they’ve brought me in as someone who can create a new vision for what the program should be. It wasn’t even on my radar until late December last year, everything happened really fast. I’ve never lived in this city before, but I’m really excited about the challenges that it brings.
What do you think is different about upstate New York and North Carolina? What is exciting about the move for you? What worries you?
It’s a lot of transitioning in a short period of time. I sold my home, I’m looking at neighborhoods. I’m moving my practice there as well, so I’m starting the process of getting my license in North Carolina. The most exciting thing is the scale of the challenge. UNC Charlotte is bringing me in based on the impact that I'm gonna have on the city. I’ve had some impact here in Syracuse, but it’s a smaller city. To think that I could have an impact on a city as big as Charlotte is really overwhelming but exciting.
What was your childhood dream job?
It sounds pretty boring but I’ve wanted to be an architect since I was five years old. I’m one of those weird people who figured it out very early and didn't change my path. I was always drawing, but art was considered a pass time, so people were like ‘what are you actually going to do for a career?’ I would take everything apart or watch people assembling things; I had that type of brain that could understand how things fit together.
I remember my grandmother would talk about these people who draw buildings that can have an effect on changing the world. My mother’s story is that I watched an episode of Sesame Street and wanted to be an architect.
When you were in architecture school, is there a specific architect that inspired you to take your path?
I really loved Carlo Scarpa. Scarpa was the first work I saw where every single little detail was considered. This aligns with how my brain works. If you can have a concept of a design that affects the scale of a building, but have the same concept result in a floor detail, then that’s another level of design. I was even more influenced by the other architecture students that were ahead of me at Cornell.
Knowing your background in Hip-Hop Architecture, how do you instruct your students on the path to architecture and urban design?
My fundamental instruction is about getting to the basics: knowing how to draw well, understanding space as a medium, knowing how to put things together formally, and how to locate things within a context. I tell students that architecture is really about people. And it is about expressing our cultural values in built form.
What impact have you have made within your community that you are most proud of?
I focus on community empowerment. How can we get communities to a level of power where they are doing the design work themselves? My practice has built a food co-op on the south side of Syracuse and I’m working on fundraising for the Syracuse Hip-Hop Headquarters. Some of that work is still a test for a larger community engagement process, and I think Charlotte will be a great place for it.
What is the first word you think of when you hear:
Community? Empowerment
Equity? Empowerment
Design? Vision. Expansive, unlimited, pure, imaginative vision.
What is your favorite...
Art Installation?
It has to be something by Olalekan Jeyifous, his work is fantastic.
Street?
Westcott Street here in Syracuse. It has this cool strip of bars and restaurants and theaters. It’s really walkable and just a fun place to be.
Public Space?
Union Square in Manhattan. My favorite memory is a few days after 9/11, there was a chalk mural and candlelight vigil. As the evening came, people started singing. All of a sudden there was this big chorus singing these amazing songs for hours. It was one of the most beautifully healing moments I've ever experienced.
Who is your favorite author / favorite book?
For fiction or fantasy, Tolkien for sure. I’m a big Lord of the Rings nerd. I also love this book Ask and It Is Given, by Esther and Jerry Hicks. It’s like a Bible for me.
Tell us about your book that is coming out later this month!
Sekou showing Gary a physical copy of his new book, Hip-Hop Architecture
The book is about Hip-Hop Architecture and how culture is conveyed in the architectural realm. I started writing it over two years ago, so it’s great to see it in real life! I heard about the theory in the mid 90s, Nate Williams did his thesis in Hip-Hop Architecture. It was basically about his cultural understanding of himself and considering how to produce architecture that expresses his identity. Hip-Hop is expressed through art, dance, fashion, music, literature, it has to be expressed in architecture.
What is one of the biggest lessons you have learned from the pandemic that you will move forward with?
The value of stepping back and taking a breath and reassessing what is and is not important. And being able to listen to and find truth around me. My direction is so much clearer now due to having the time and space to stop and focus.
When we are able to travel again, what is the first big trip that you really want to go on?
Japan! I’d like to go for a month, I promised my mother and my dearest friend and her daughter that we would.
Tell us about your groundbreaking exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art.
It’s called Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. It is curated by Shawn Anderson and Mabel Wilson. It’s a show that includes ten designers, architects, and artists, with a video installation by David Hart. All ten architects formed a nonprofit organization called the Black Reconstruction Collective to empower people working to complete the unfinished work of reconstruction and emancipation in the African diaspora. It is the first show at the MOMA to feature work exclusively by Black architects. It is an earth shattering show and we are getting a lot of amazing feedback.
Photos from the Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness exhibit courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art.
What was the feeling like when you picked up your book for the first time?
When it came out of the box for the first time, it felt like the closest I could come to witnessing childbirth. I couldn't believe that I had produced this. I can't wait for people to read it and tell me what they think.
