White Space: the Architecture of Institutional Racism

Abstract

Racist ideologies are embedded in spaces we design. From courtrooms to classrooms, and from circulation to threshold, architects in the US design spaces that reflect an institutionalization of white supremacy. While the whiteness of such spaces may be invisible to some, it is oppressive and even violent for others. This paper contributes a framework for describing and analyzing institutional white space in architecture. We build on sociological theories of white institutions to demonstrate how architectural elements express and perpetuate institutional racism. We illustrate this framework through reviewing sociological interpretations of institutional spaces. Such elements as spatial hierarchy in courtrooms not only harbor a white institutional history, but they engender a racialized experience of space. We argue that reading architecture through the proposed lens of white institutional space is an important step toward confronting institutional racism inherent in design and space.