Urban street beautification projects often confuse “beauty” with cleanliness, sweeping aside the unsavory realities of the street. The Guerilla Street Museum serves as a model for engaging and activating the street while simultaneously revealing what beautification projects often seek to hide. Museums traditionally display only artifacts deemed worthy by the culture that supports it. Here, we give the street its own “museum,” which can be replicated across the city as a mechanism to reveal the hidden stories of many diverse constituencies and neighborhoods.
This project was a collaboration between architecture students at CCA, led by Associate Professor Neal Schwartz, and Larkin Street Youth Services. The work both promotes the mission of Larkin Street and exhibits the creative work of the homeless and at-risk youth they serve. The project was exhibited as one of fifty installations selected for the 2015 Market Street Prototyping Festival and will be exhibited during the summer of 2015 in other venues.
CCA Architecture Team: Adika Djojosugito, Joy Fu, Danny Hsieh, Eva Jin, Saharsh Khaitan, Fredy Lim, Susan Lopez, Li Lu, Martin Setiawan, Andrea Tse, Melody Villavicencio
Professor: Neal Schwartz, Schwartz and Architecture