Transition Is Inevitable

Inside Citygroup’s sweltering, unconditioned gallery, Elisa Iturbe led participants in a folding tutorial. Following her lead, we turned the printed sheets into pocket-sized pamphlets, whose contents (and lack thereof) lent it a subversive, yet incomplete character. Its pages began half empty; together, we filled it in. The Architecture Lobby’s Green New Deal (GND) working group has been engaging with legislation, legislators, and broad histories of labor organization to bring the profession closer to a just energy transition. Taking steps towards veto power, collectivity, and a new building paradigm for architects – one that involves making less – was our agenda. A quote from the Climate Justice Alliance—“Transition is inevitable. Justice is not.”—grounded the group in its urgency. So did the phrase “We are fossil fuel workers,” a verbal admittance that architects are just as implicated as staffers at BP or Shell. But aiming for a future of regeneration, not extraction, is how the GND group is starting to redefine struggles in the design professions as worker struggles. What if you were passed the pamphlet over the cubicle wall? What if it made its way into your pencil case? What would you as a worker need to know? Monday’s open-format meeting let in an unprecedented number of new voices committed to sketching out what refusal looks like.