Brian Goldstein, author of Max Bond: The Life and Work of the People’s Architect, will join us at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute on Friday, October 30, at 12:00 p.m. for a book signing and discussion.

The first biography of Max Bond, the book explores the life and legacy of the civil rights activist, educator, and architect who championed the cause of freedom through architecture and helped shape Black history and modernism. Bond’s prolific portfolio includes the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and our very own Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Goldstein will begin with a brief overview of the book, followed by a panel discussion exploring historic places and spaces across Alabama and the importance of the built environment in preserving and telling our history.

Please register to let us know you’re coming.

About Max Bond: The Life and Work of the People’s Architect

J. Max Bond Jr. (1935–2009) was a civil rights activist, educator, and architect who shaped such iconic structures as the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC, and the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in Manhattan. Driven by the concerns of the civil rights movement, he insisted on a practice centered on deep social engagement during years when his profession became preoccupied with celebrity and spectacle.

Harvard educated and son of an eminent African American family, Bond designed housing, cultural institutions, community centers, and campuses amid an era of sweeping changes in architecture, urbanism, and American culture. He expressed an architectural vision that was democratic and inclusive, international in orientation, and celebratory of cities and their diverse residents. Yet his work has often been overlooked. Award-winning historian Brian Goldstein renders it visible.

Beautifully illustrated, Max Bond is the definitive biography of one of the most important architects of our time, whose aspiration toward an architecture by and for the people was as urgent in his day as it remains in our own.

About the Author
Brian D. Goldstein is an architectural and urban historian, and associate professor at Swarthmore College. His work focuses on the intersection of the built environment, race and class, and social movements, especially in the United States in the twentieth century. He is the author of Max Bond: The Life and Work of the People’s Architect. His first book, The Roots of Urban Renaissance: Gentrification and the Struggle Over Harlem, won the 2019 Lewis Mumford Prize for the Best Book in Planning History and the 2020 John Friedmann Book Award. He lives in Washington, DC.

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