The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion: New York Edition

The Center for Architecture is proud to announce the opening of The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion: New York Edition on Friday, January 26 at 6:00 pm. The exhibition, curated and designed by Interboro Partners, focuses on New York City as a laboratory where weapons of exclusion and inclusion are invented, deployed, and honed to perfection.

The exhibition opening at the Center for Architecture will also serve as the launch of Interboro’s book, The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion, which examines policies, practices, and physical artifacts that are used by planners, policymakers, developers, real estate brokers, community activists, and other urban actors across the US to draw, erase, or redraw the lines that divide. The Arsenal inventories these weapons of exclusion and inclusion, describes their use, and speculates about how they may be deployed (or retired) to create more open cities, where more people have access to more places. At the Center for Architecture, a mural will present all 153 weapons detailed in the book in a colorful, Breugelesque scene. Visitors can embark on a Waldo-style scavenger hunt to locate all the weapons. 

Tools of particular relevance to NYC will be called out and described in detail. New York City’s high density, combined with a white-hot real estate market, incubates all sorts of exclusionary weapons that are used to demarcate territory (like armrests on benches, buzzers, and no loitering signs), or increase revenue (like business improvement districts, poor doors, and POPs). In response, the city’s inhabitants also devise inclusionary weapons (like aging improvement districts, public housing, and rent control) to make the city more livable and accessible for all. These inclusionary weapons, all too often overlooked, are crucial to keeping NYC a thriving, functional city, not just an enclave for the rich.

Copies of The Arsenal of Exclusion & Inclusion will be available for purchase at the opening and throughout the length of the exhibition.