The Labor of Architecture with C. G. Beck and Professor Richard D. Wolff

Join Architectural Workers United’s C. G. Beck and Democracy at Work’s Professor Richard D. Wolff for a conversation about labor, architecture, and democracy at The People’s Forum. Beck and Wolff will discuss Beck’s recently released book The Labor of Architecture: Creativity, Design, and the Building of a New Class Consciousness. From the standpoint of architect and union organizer, The Labor of Architecture confronts the myths and realities of the profession, advocating for a solidarity-based union movement to help build a more just society. Building off the success of the Mamdani campaign, they will discuss the role of unions in shaping workplaces and strengthening democracy in a moment of profound historical change.

The Labor of Architecture examines the social and historical narratives that led to the illusory division between the “working class” and the “creative class.” In popular imagination, as author C.G. Beck observes, the architect is a singular genius, obsessively working alone in the studio. Surrounded by beautiful drawings and intricate models, the architect wrestles only with themselves and the purity of their design. This is certainly no longer the case—and perhaps never was.

Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor of The New School in New York City. Professor Wolff is the co-founder of Democracy at Work and host of their nationally syndicated show Economic Update.

C. G. Beck is an architect and organizer based in Brooklyn, NY. He served on the organizing and bargaining committees for BAU, the first private-sector architecture union in the U.S. He continues to organize workers with AWU, a campaign out of the IAM, and also teaches at The New School.