Extra Credit Journal

                From “Black Vernacular: Architecture as Cultural Practice,” I learned that art and expressing ones most inner emotions can have a dramatic effect on a person’s outlook as a whole.  When Hook says “It fascinates me now to think about why a white male Italian immigrant high school art teacher in the segregated South would encourage students to think of artistic practice solely in relation to fantasy and desire,” to me that meant a lot.  For Hook and her black peers, growing up in the Deep South, living in segregated communities, living with the “po’ folks” must have been a very hard life.  Hook tells us that there was very little architectural advancements in those areas due to the low incomes.  For this reason it must have been hard for kids to achieve a good sense of imagination.  This project was not only a way for the children to become distracted from all of the political warfare that was going on around them, but it was also a way for them to dream in a way that most schools or institutions do not generally promote, to dream outside the realm of reality.

            For the project the kids could dream up any scenario that popped into their heads that they saw amusing or something that they might like to have when they grow up.  I also believe that this project may have inspired the students to look more closely at the architecture that was all around them and make them more aware of it.  I believe that this is why there has now been a more in depth look into the architecture of the black working-class folks of the south.