4x8 Cityscape

“I came to feel that these images could be the starting point for an expression of my personal feelings regarding the, far from accidental, killings of Black Americans, an unequal justice system, and the failure to teach the history of systemic racism in our schools.”

Artist Statement

My practice as an architect has always drawn inspiration from photographic pursuits and this often focuses on the effects of happenstance in the built environment. The work I produce represents an exploration of architectural and artistic form where chance and unintended outcomes can have a liberating effect on what we design and create.

Titled “4x8 Cityscape,” this project began as a photographic documentation of the boarded-up windows along Wisconsin Avenue, from Cleveland Park to Friendship Heights, following George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020. I came to feel that these images could be the starting point for an expression of my personal feelings regarding the, far from accidental, killings of Black Americans, an unequal justice system, and the failure to teach the history of systemic racism in our schools.

The plywood covered and muted storefronts offered an opportunity to place this tragic legacy front and center in the cityscape. To this end, I digitally “stenciled” the images with a sampling of names and places representing police violence against people of color.  The commemorations range from the 1921 Greenwood Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma to the June 12, 2020 killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta, Georgia.

Artist Bio

Jim Stokoe has lived and worked in the Washington, DC area for fifty-six years with time away for undergraduate and graduate degrees at Washington University in St. Louis, a year working for Charles Moore in Centerbrook, Connecticut, and a year-long fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. Returning to Washington, DC in 1979, Mr. Stokoe began a 5-year position at Hartman–Cox Architects. In 1982, Dover Books published his graduate school thesis project, a photographic documentation of 19th century and early 20th century decorative brickwork.

Mr. Stokoe, a member of AIA|DC, began his own architectural practice in 1984. Projects included work for Lowell School, recipient of a 1989 Washington Chapter, AIA Award, the John F. Kennedy Center, The National Archives, and the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum, National Museum of Natural History, and National Air and Space Museum. Mr. Stokoe collaborated on projects with his wife, graphic designer Caroline Lee and exhibit designer and artist, Val Lewton. This work included exhibition design for the National Museum of Women in the Arts, The Mississippi Museum of Art, and the 1999 “Renoir to Rothko” exhibition at the Phillips Collection.

In 2008, Mr. Stokoe mounted an exhibition of his photography at the National AIA Headquarters, titled “Architecture of Construction.” Mr. Stokoe designed a major renovation of the Fralin Art Museum at the University of Virginia, completed in 2009. In 2011, he collaborated with his daughter Madeline Stokoe, AIA, on a First Place-awarded entry to the “Close the Gap” competition that focused on envisioning a walkway/bikeway along the East River in Manhattan. Currently Mr. Stokoe has been pursuing photographic interests while working on projects for George Washington’s Mount Vernon, a client of more than 25 years.

For more about James Stokoe and his work, visit accidentalarchitecture.com.

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