The site is often a good resource for potential clients, suppliers, and young students looking to talk to an architect in their area. Coles also cited the Kerner Report, which concluded that the nation was rapidly developing into two societies, one black and one white, separate and unequal. The Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, California. The Directory of African American Architects. At that time, we suspected that the estimated numbers we came across in various publications were not accurate.
The National Architectural Accrediting Board reports that for the 1993–94 academic year, 6.3 percent of students in accredited B. Arch and M. Arch programs were African American. Robert Robinson Taylor is widely considered to be the first academically trained and credentialed Black architect in America. While Wallace Augustus Rayfield was a student at Columbia University, Booker T. Washington recruited him to head the Architectural and Mechanical Drawing Department at Tuskegee Institute. Carol M. Highsmith/Getty Images (cropped). [12] She was based out of Illinois, and started her practice in Chicago. In 1937, it was remodeled to become the New Granada Theatre. "20 on 20/20 vision: Perspectives on Diversity and Design." We decided to create a website that could be updated instantaneously as we received new information. African American architects represent about 2% of all licensed architects (113,000) and African American women represent approximately 0.3%. Nevertheless, there are a number of Black architects who have managed, designed, and constructed some of today's most admired structures. Rayfield was the second professionally educated Black architect in the United States, right behind Taylor. "Young African American Women Architects sharpen ties to their communities." Architect Robert Robinson Taylor on 2015 Black Heritage Stamp Series. Today there are currently 440. She formed Danita M. Brown Architect, Inc. in 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia where she currently practices. Often reaching for the unexpected in his work, Pittman died penniless in Dallas. Born in South Carolina, Louis Arnett Stuart Bellinger earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1914 from the historically Black Howard University in Washington, D.C. For more than a quarter of a century, Bellinger designed key buildings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Robert Robinson Taylor (1868–1942) Robert Robinson Taylor is widely considered to be the first … However, clients were often opposed to having their projects overseen by an African American architect. Booker T. Washington recruited him to help establish Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, a campus now forever associated with Taylor's work.
Most students of architecture have never heard of Benjamin Banneker, who assisted Pierre Charles L'Enfant in the planning of Washington, DC; or Julian Abele, who designed the Widener Library at Harvard University; or Robert Taylor, the first African American to earn an architecture degree and who worked with Booker T. Washington on the design of Tuskegee Institute. who worked in Chicago and Brazil with Mies. In 1958, he received a Fulbright scholarship to study in Paris and went on to live in Ghana for four years. Founded in 1906, the fraternity has "supplied voice and vision to the struggle of African Americans and people of color around the world." He is well-known for designing Buffalo's Michigan Avenue YMCA, a building that became a cultural center for the Black community in the city. Kilment, Stephen A. As the first Black graduate of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1902, Abele spent his entire career at the Philadelphia firm of the Gilded Age architect Horace Trumbauer. When Bond was a student at Harvard, racists burned a cross outside his dormitory. We believe that the website alone has helped to publicize who African American architects are and where they practice. 2003. The architect died suddenly on December 13, 1942, while visiting Tuskegee Chapel in Alabama. In 2015, he was honored by being featured on a stamp issued by the U.S. 16th St. Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama. Since we began our research in 1990, the number of licensed African American architects has more than quadrupled, and the number of licensed African American women has grown from 48 to 440. Recent studies of the role of gender and race in the architectural profession and in architectural education suggest that weak demographic presence has a negative effect on African American architects and other underrepresented architects in the field (see Kathryn Anthony’s Shattering the Glass Ceiling). Villa Lewaro, the Madam C. J. Walker Estate, Irvington, New York. September 11 Memorials - Architecture of Remembrance, Biography of Rem Koolhaas, Dutch Architect. From building the city of Charlotte to becoming mayor of that same city, Gantt's life has been filled with victories in both architecture and Democratic politics. He designed buildings for Howard University in Washington D.C, Morgan State University in Baltimore, and Virginia Union University in Richmond. ", This page was last edited on 26 August 2020, at 19:06. Coles' data was taken from statistics collected by the Department of Labor, which counted everyone in the field of architecture without distinguishing licensed architects from interns, technicians, or even designer/builders. Although Abele's original architectural drawings for Duke University have been described as works of art, it wasn't until the 1980s that Abele's efforts have been acknowledged at Duke. "Is there a Black Architect in the house?" In Austin, the numbers paint an even bleaker picture: fewer than .1 percent of more than 1,100 licensed architects are African-American.
The Crisis of the African-American Architect: Conflicting Cultures of ... Melvin L. Mitchell No preview available - 2003. J. Max Bond, Jr. was born in 1935 in Louisville, Kentucky and educated at Harvard, with a bachelor's degree in 1955 and a master's degree in 1958. In addition, the number of licensed women has greatly increased. Growing up in North Carolina, Taylor worked as a carpenter and foreman for his prosperous father, Henry Taylor, who was the son of a white enslaver and a Black woman. “For the most part, the employees of … Howard University Moorland-Spingarn Research Center's "Archive of African American Architects" (the largest archival repository with information on African American Architects). National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C. Duke University Chapel, Durham, Norrh Carolina. Educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Taylor's final project for a bachelor's degree in Architecture was "Design for a Soldiers' Home"—it examined housing to accommodate aging Civil War veterans. His works include the Frank Reeves Municipal Center in Washington, D.C, the Ambulatory Care Project for Harlem Hospital, the Frank E. Merriweather Library, the Johnnie B. Wiley Sports Pavilion in Buffalo, and the Alumni Arena at the University of Buffalo. Williams received his architecture license from the state of California, and was the first black person to join the AIA (American Institute of Architects) and the first black person to become a fellow of the AIA. Like other Black architects, Pittman was educated at Tuskegee University; he then went on to study architecture at Drexel Institute in Philadelphia.