Narrative of Absence

Narrative of Absence is a design project that highlights text from Colin Gordon's book, Mapping Decline and two interviews with women who grew up a generation apart in North St. Louis from the podcast We Live Here. The text balances and juxtaposes both academic research on housing decline along with personal narratives. The book displays the factual with the personal, creating a more intimate narrative that highlights "feelings of remembrance and longing for what was once present but now empty.”

Law, Race, and Design
Feb 2020

In February 2020, I had the opportunity to join as a guest lecturer for Washington University in St. Louis’s class Law, Race, and Design, and shared important themes from my undergraduate senior capstone project, Narrative of Absence—a book designed as a way to reflect on issues of vacancy and housing segregation in St. Louis. I shared my experience researching and understanding my own relationship with space in St. Louis, and how to balance not placing myself into the storyline.

I spent a few minutes after class chatting with professors Penina Laker and John Inazu about the difference between living in St Louis and attending school in St. Louis.
Give our podcast a listen to find out more . .

Design

CAPSTONE PROCCESS

WEEK 1: Content Development and Idea Generation
I began with the idea of preservation. I wanted to show how a city, in particular St. Louis, has a unique history and collection of stories surrounding the many vacant buildings. After WWII, much of St. Louis's population–in particular White residents–left the urban centers, creating a city of ghost architecture and further divide (this is a very simplified statement on a complicated issue). My idea is to look at the stories of these ghost buildings and abandoned neighborhoods and how the racial divide of the city influences urban development. 

At the heart of this project is a question: why does the city look and function the way it does?  

Audience: My audience is those who want to be more educated on the stories of St. Louis's past. I understand that I, as a non-St. Louis native, present an outsider perspective on a complicated city history. Stories and locations I choose to highlight will reflect my bias. Ideally, this project is targeted towards individuals who are passionate about St. Louis history, urban design and architecture, and how stories and memories of places are archived. This project is not all-encompassing, but will hopefully open one's eyes to learning more about the past life of St. Louis. 

Form: I intend to create a book which captures the memories and histories of what once was there, but now isn’t. I believe a physical artifact is important in capturing the disappearing memories of the topics that I will explore. The permanence of the printed object creates an importance and physicality to ideas and spaces that are in flux.

Content: Through the past few months, I have been reading and listening to content related to city design, St. Louis renovation, building preservation, and the affects of St. Louis segregation. 

Podcasts: 
White Flight and Reclaimed Memories
Episode 44: The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
Episode 283: Dollhouses of St. Louis

Articles:
New York Times: A Divided City
St. Louis Post: Chippewa Park Rehab
St. Louis Post: Revival on Chippewa
Prospect of National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Building on a Promise
Where are the oldest buildings in St. Louis?
How old is that Building? 
Brick Theft in North St. Louis: A Preservation Crisis
Invisible Buildings: Photography, Memory and Architectural Destruction

Websites:
Preservation Research Office
Demolition Permits in the Last 30 Days
Civic Creatives
CityLab
Mapping Decline
Funeral for a Home
Where You Are 

Washington University Capstones:
Emma Riley
Paul Cronan

WEEK 2: Content and Design Research
After the feedback I received from Week One, I knew I needed to clarify my intentions for this project. I decided that I did not want to have a case study on one particular neighborhood. I want this book to showcase a variety of locations and stories in St. Louis, not particularly one block's history. I have been looking at ways to categorize the information that I have gathered and the best way to present this. I plan on creating a book with different sections on Urban Development, poetry, and photography using articles from the St. Louis newspaper, the podcast We Live Here, Architectural plans created by Washington University in St. Louis Graduate Students, and the book Mapping Decline by Colin Gordon. 

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a list in September of the 13 of the most endangered buildings and places in Missouri in 2017. This list is state-wide, but I plan on narrowing down buildings in St. Louis to use as an analysis on the greater issues at hand. Gordon presents a case study on 4635 North Market Street–vacant, abandoned, razed, and un-renewed–which is a poignant monument to the history of the modern American city, in this case St. Louis. 

Further, the podcast We Live Here and the episode White Flight and Reclaimed Memories will serve as key text. Cheeraz Gorman recites her poem, "Who Moved My Memories," on the episode. Cheeraz reconciles with returning to her once-stable, idyllic, childhood neighborhood which these days is filled with vacant lots and the effects of institutional poverty. Christine Schmiz was also interviewed, and addresses her life living in North St. Louis and how her family moved from their home to south St. Louis County in the 1960s. In the past few years, Schmiz has sought to reconcile her feelings about her family's role in the wave of white flight.

Visual Research: 
Mood Board and Inspiration

WEEK 4: Visual Testing & Content
This week was a turning point for research and process development. Due to the historical research involved in understanding St. Louis's complicated housing development, I understood that gathering research would be an unclear and complicated process that evolved as I learned and focused on different topics within St. Louis. I met with a Missouri Historical Society Archives Librarian, along with a Washington University Special Collection Liberian, and both strongly suggested that I narrow down and present a case study on a block and present the stories for the buildings and occupants. Both libraries have a plethora of information and documents available for me to study. I found myself slightly overwhelmed by the amount of information at hand. I decided to take the Librarians advice and narrow down my search to one single block. I will be focusing on the block that Colin Gordon's house case study is on, block number 4472 in the Greater Ville neighborhood.  

I have updated my outline to include: 

1. Dollhouses of St. Louis from 99% Invisible 

2. White Flight and Reclaimed Memories from We Live Here

3. Case Study of the lot, 4635 Market Street, and block 4472

Additionally, I have just started reading through oral histories that were taken in the 1990s of elderly civilians growing up in St. Louis. I might be including aspects of these interviews as well. 

WEEK 5: First Complete Draft

• Listened to Colin Gordon's Lecture on campus on "Home Inequity: Race, Wealth, and home ownership in St. Louis 

• Finished first draft (100+ pages)

• Guest critics reviewed draft and suggested placing myself in the storyline as an outsider to the city

• Contact Curators of the Pulitzer shows: A Way, Away (Listen While I Say) and raumlaborberlin: 4562 Enright Avenue

WEEK 7: Poster Development
On Monday we worked together as a class to conceptualize different routes that we could visualize into posters for the final exhibition. During a design sprint at the end of class I created thumbnails and two "final" versions of posters. 

Words & Images I can't use:
Maps
Blueprints
Pictures of Buildings
Black & White Photos
Pictures of Demolished Buildings

The poster brainstorming has helped me visualize the aesthetic I want to push for the final book. I want to take a step back and play with shapes, gradients, and empty space to express my points rather than straightforward text and image. 

WEEK 12: Final
By the end of the semester I created a 200+ page book that presented the content of remembrance and vacancy through the chosen text and design choices at play. The book is not an easy read, so I pushed the visual design choices to express what the text was saying so one did not have read every element to understand the content. The experience of researching, designing, and producing the book by myself allowed me to understand that a semester for a project is actually a very short amount of time. In hindsight, I wish I began research in my Fall semester due to the large quality of information and ideas I wished to pursue. Overtime I had to settle on my research and information in order to focus on the design. I struggled through the semester in balancing the best way to respectfully present a complicated topic as one not originally from St. Louis. Originally I had hoped to bring in my own experience of space and place within St. Louis, but as the semester went on, I felt that my narrative was not apart of what I was trying to express. I pushed myself to create a unique project that raised awareness of issues surrounding our community. I am excited to see where my future in design work goes and how I can continue pursuing research in Urban Development, housing segregation, and the individual lives impacted. 

WEEK 14: Reception
At the completion of the project, Washington University's communication design program invited guest designers to critique our final work. Overall, the critics felt the project was both ambitious and impressive and thought that the design was "uncomfortable–in a good way". Additionally they thought separating the narrative into the micro and macro level was a smart choice in presenting the content. They suggested that I could push the concept of vanishing even further from what I have. Overall I am very thankful for the help, comments, and critics I received throughout this semester, especially from my Professor Penina Acayo. Through her help I was able to connect with a variety of individuals in the community to talk with. I am hopeful to see where the discussion of urban vacancy and segregation goes for the future of St. Louis.