Charles L. Davis II

In March 2023, e-flux magazine and The Cosmic House collaborated to curate the online exhibition “Chronograms of Architecture,” which revisited the contemporary relevance of Charles Jencks’ 1970s “Evolutionary Tree” of architectural movements. This presentation will review the collaboration of Charles L. Davis II and Curry Hackett, which visualized the racial epistemologies hidden within the scholarly footnotes of architectural tectonics. This research has since been exhibited at the Architectural Association in 2024 and CIVA in Brussels in 2025. 

Charles L. Davis II is an associate professor of architectural history and criticism and Director of the Architecture PhD Program at UT Austin’s School of Architecture. He received his PhD in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.Arch from the University at Buffalo. His academic research excavates the role of racial identity and race thinking in architectural history and contemporary design culture. He is currently working on a monograph entitled Black Architectural Modernity: A Spatial History of Racial Uplift in the U.S. Settler Colony. This research explores the historical role of spatial occupation and programmatic innovation in the development of a modern Black architectural tradition in the United States between 1865 and the 1990s.

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