Category=AGA
Category=AGB
Category=AJCD
Category=AMB
Category=DNB
Category=DNBF
Category=JBSL1
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
Product details
- ISBN 9781954939158
- Dimensions: 171 x 241mm
- Publication Date: 13 Aug 2026
- Publisher: New York Consolidated
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Redressing the woeful under-recognition of a pioneering Black queer architect and artist
Published with Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University.
This is an experimental illustrated reader exploring the work and legacy of American architect, educator and artist Amaza Lee Meredith (1895–1984), a trailblazer who was the first known Black queer woman to practice as an architect in the United States.
This book takes Meredith's expansive letter-writing practice as a conceptual framework for epistolary responses in the present, plotting Meredith's life and work within themes of placemaking, gender, sexuality and Black love, with a focus on how she built sanctuaries (homes, institutions and communities) for herself and other people of color to foster rigorous artistic pursuit, free of persecution.
The book features previously unpublished photos, blueprints, letters and scrapbooks from Meredith's archives and an annotated timeline of her life and work. Essays from architectural scholars and oral histories with former students, colleagues and friends explore her legacy in public education, the arts, modernist architecture and the built environment in the context of school desegregation, civil rights, and land and property rights. A diverse group of contemporary artists also respond to Meredith's legacy.
