Feature
Interview
Afritecture
Jack Travis
So, the support they extended to us came from their hearts, perhaps their souls,
and much less from their reasoning of what we should be focusing in on for
personal gain. I think my parents preferred us to be happy, safe and self-reliant
than prosperous or well to do. Racism was still a clear and ever present danger and
fixture overtly practiced in American culture and we could definitely sense from a
very early age that Black people (as well as Mexicans, Cubans and the few Native
peoples) had a different set of circumstances to navigate than other people in the
town.
I suppose the fact that my parents navigated from their hearts (soul) first and
foremost is the reason I orientate myself towards architecture in similar fashion.
Architecture for me has always been about people solutions for equity in spatial
navigation for making place.
Much of my focus is small scale and I have never been able to, or quite frankly, been
interested in, navigating large scale problems.
Recently I have discovered that small scale solutions really lie in large scale
concepts that are evidence based and conceived in collaboration with a whole host
of players outside of the design field that we were not taught in school matter at all
in the design process of making good and relevant design.
I’m referring to people such as activist, advocates, community organizers and
simply concerned mothers and fathers and the like. I knew many people who
were not architects by training but who not only built but maintained as well as
designed and planned our buildings on the West side of Las Vegas. These people
I learned to discount and ignore for the most part. However I later re-realized
that these are people who really understood the pulse of the Black community as
professional and politicians didn’t really seem to care so much.
Jack with director Spike Lee and actor Wesley Snipes.
At Alliance FrancoSénégalaise, Kaolack