V. Mitch McEwen's 'Erasure by Design' Exposes Demolition as Modernist Tool

V. Mitch McEwen's 'Erasure by Design,' released by Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, reinterprets demolition and urban renewal as pivotal to modernity. The author presents 'protocols of erasure,' highlighting how racialized data is employed to rationalize the destruction of neighborhoods deemed 'blighted' for the sake of creating 'clean' spaces. The work scrutinizes examples from Southwest D.C., North St. Louis, Texas, and California, portraying 'blight' as a bureaucratic construct that exposes systemic racism in urban planning. It also discusses the Pruitt-Igoe complex, initially intended for renewal but later repurposed for biological warfare tests, and critiques the 1934 Housing Exhibition at MoMA and Philip Johnson's ties to the Nazis. The book features black squares representing erasure and incorporates elements of Black feminism and autobiography. Janet Vertesi from Princeton University commends it as a 'tour de force.'