BVA's Peter Zuspan's research project entitled The Performance of Shame: The Desegregation Renovations of Downtown Atlanta, wins the 2021 Arnold W. Brunner Grant for Architectural Research.

The project investigates the desegregation renovations of public and commercial architecture in downtown Atlanta in the 1960s, leading up to and after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The primary objective of the project will be to understand how architecture intersects with the history of American racism at the scale of the individual building. The project will result in a digital archive of historical documents and a long-form essay, documenting insights from these renovations—their successes and their failures—to understand architecture’s role in contributing to and attempting to overcome our racist past.