Review: Pamphlet Architecture 23: MOVE: sites of trauma

Tia Blassingame

MOVE: Sites of Trauma cover image

MOVE: Sites of Trauma
style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>opens with a brief discussion of
the often antagonistic relationship between the Christian Movement for Life, or
The Movement (MOVE) membership, Philadelphia law enforcement and the West
Philadelphia neighborhood that lead to the May 13, 1985 annihilation of three
city blocks and sixty-one houses. Two hundred and fifty people were left
homeless and eleven people, including five children, dead.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Dickson portrays the incident as a
"war". In this conflict, the Philadelphia police department used C-4
explosive in a residential area as well as fired thousands of ammunition rounds
into the row house at 6221 Osaga Avenue when residents refused to vacate their
property. Moreover, after causing a gasoline can on the roof to ignite in a
fiery explosion by dropping a bomb onto the row house, city police and fire
departments allowed the fire to burn unchecked for four hours prior to
attempting to control, or stop it.
The incident was televised; Philadelphians, including their Mayor,
watched as part of their city burned. The subsequent rebuilding of the
Powellton Village neighborhood resulted in the shoddy construction that ignored
elements of Philadelphia’s row house typology such as a prominently featured
elevated patio.

style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’>

Dickson merges architecture with the core beliefs of John
Africa, MOVE’s founder, and psychological concepts related to space. For
example, Dickson explores the following concepts: one’s residence as a
modification of their environment, nature in an urban environment,
modification/fortification of space to reclaim and secure your own power and
safety. Lastly, the elevated porch as an iconographic transitional space
between public and private in Philadelphia residences, serving to connect
neighbors as well as a platform for the dissemination of ideas and beliefs as
evidenced by MOVE use of its porch coupled with megaphone and speakers.
Security through vertical movement, or fortification, exemplified by the bunker
MOVE built on its roof. Furthermore MOVE extended its interior or inhabitable
space into the backyard. The pattern of the party, or fire, walls the only
remnants of the row houses and the neighborhood still standing after the
explosion and subsequent blaze to inform Dickson’s design proposal.

Though diminutive in size by interweaving architecture,
psychology and tragic events, Sites of Trauma
style=’font-size:8.0pt;font-family:Verdana’> matures into a voluminous and
powerful purveyor of clues to the continued relevancy of architecture in
addressing the underrepresented, in activating and building upon the lessons
learned from even the most brutal of violent incidents. Dickson presents a
compelling investigation of the MOVE bombing through her architectural
proposition, "transform/sustain". The insertion of four additional
architectural propositions, while interesting, seems an afterthought. In light
of the events of September 11th, an exploration into the role of
architecture and architects in public memory, memorialization, and
appropriation would have been timelier.

Review: Pamphlet Architecture 23: MOVE: sites of trauma – Tia Blassingame

Review: Pamphlet Architecture 23: MOVE: sites of trauma