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African-American architects are those in the architectural profession who are African American in the United States. Their work in the more distant past was often overlooked or outright erased from the historical records due to the racist social dynamics at play in the country (and also due to the proxied nature of the profession itself), but the black members of the profession—and their historic contributions—have become somewhat more recognized since. [1] [2]
"The experience of being Black in architecture involves learning about a discipline that does not include the contributions of African American architects like Paul Revere Williams, Robert R. Taylor, Walter T. Bailey and Wallace Rayfield within the canons of the profession... The experience of being Black in architecture requires you to unearth the accomplishments of other Blacks in architecture to understand how they navigated the often tumultuous waters of the profession."
Kwesi Daniels, 2020, department head at the Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science at Tuskegee University [1]
The first African American architects appeared in the mid-1800s. Being African American and trying to become an architect in a White-dominated profession, especially in the 1800s-1900s was difficult. [3] Racism towards African Americans was prevalent in the 1800s-1900s and this was amplified by the addition and enforcement of Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow Laws enforced segregation of White and Blacks, therefore promoting direct racism. Many African American architects working during and after this time period faced obstacles due to overt racism perpetuated by the society and culture of the United States.
Claflin University (formerly Claflin College) was the first historically Black school to offer an architectural drawing course, starting around the 1890s. [4] [5] Other early Black schools for architecture programs included Hampton University (formerly Hampton Institute), Florida A&M University, Howard University, North Carolina A&T State University, Prairie View A&M University (formerly Prairie View A&M College), Southern University, and Tuskegee University (formerly Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute). [5]
Some architects such as Julian Francis Abele, Louis Arnett Stuart Bellinger, and Paul Revere Williams were able to obtain architectural degrees from top universities, architectural licenses, and positions at top architectural firms. [2] [3] However, clients were often opposed to having their projects overseen by an African American architect. [6] This resulted in many African American architects working without credit. [6]
Julian Francis Abele (1881–1950), was the first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania School of Architecture (1902). [7] [8] After traveling and studying in Europe under the sponsorship of Horace Trumbauer, Abele returned to Philadelphia and joined Trumbauer's firm in 1906. He served as chief designer from 1909 to 1938. [9] [10] The Philadelphia Museum of Art was a collaboration between Trumbauer's firm and that of Zantzinger, Borie and Medary. While another Trumbauer architect, Howell Lewis Shay, is credited with the building's plan and massing, the presentation drawings are in Abele's hand. [11] It was not until after Trumbauer's death that Abele signed his architectural drawings, or claimed credit for being the main designer of Duke University's west campus. [12] Abele also helped design the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard. [13]
Paul Revere Williams (1894–1980), was raised in the Los Angeles area where he attended school. [14] After Graduating from high school, Williams attended the Los Angeles School of Art and eventually studied at University of Southern California (USC) (class of 1919). [15] Williams then worked for established firms run by Wilbert D. Cook Jr. and George D. Hall. Williams received his architecture license from the state of California, and was the first black person in the American Institute of Architects (AIA), joining the Southern California Chapter in 1923, and the first black person to become a fellow of the AIA, in 1957. [14] In 1921, he became the first African American Architect west of the Mississippi. Williams was also a member of the Los Angeles Planning Commission in 1920, the California Housing Commission in 1947, the National Monument Commission in 1929, and the National Housing Commission in 1953. Williams designed residential buildings as well as churches, schools, and other commercial buildings. [14]
Both African American men and women dealt with similar issues regarding race, but African American women in the mid-1800 to 1900s dealt with discrimination based on sex as well. [16] [17] The first African American women architects, such as Norma Merrick Sklarek and Beverly Loraine Greene, were faced with many challenges as they completed their journey of becoming architects. For years prior, the architecture industry was dominated by white men. In the 1900s, it was difficult for an African American man to receive a fair chance to become employed at a firm because of racism. On top of this, women were fighting for equal rights. Women architects not only had to overcome many setbacks due to their race but also due to their gender. Some common setbacks faced by Sklarek included being denied entry into the world of architecture, and not receiving recognition for their work. [16] African American women had to work extremely hard just to have the chance to be educated in the field. As Sklarek demonstrated throughout her career, it was possible for African American women to excel in the architectural world, but the numbers of women within the field were low, and seem to have remained low from the time Sklarek was actively working to more recent years.
Norma Merrick Sklarek (1928–2012), was the first black woman to become a licensed architect in both New York state (1954) and in California (1962). [18] She graduated from Columbia University and worked for the architecture firms SOM and Gruen and Associates. She also was the first black woman to join the American Institute of Architects. Sklarek collaborated with Cesar Pelli on projects that include the Pacific Design Center and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.
Beverly Lorraine Greene (1915–1957), was the first black woman to become a licensed architect in the US. [19] She was based out of Illinois, and started her practice in Chicago. [19] She struggled to be noticed because of her race. [19] Greene went on to work on international projects such as UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and designed buildings for NYU. [19]
Although the culture and society in the United States have improved from the 19th and 20th centuries, African American architects and other people of color who desire to become an architect continue to deal with a lack of diversity in the field. Only 2% of licensed architects in the United States are Black or African American, and fewer than 1 in 5 new architects identify as a racial or ethnic minority, according to the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. [20]
The Directory of African American Architects [21] maintains an ongoing list of licensed African American architects. In 2007, there were 100,000 licensed architects in the United States, however only 1,571 of them were African American and 186 of these are African American women. [22] On October 24, 2019, there were 2,300 African American architects listed, including 467 women. African American architects represent about 2% [23] of all licensed architects (116,000) [24] and African American women represent approximately 0.4%, according to the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). There are several organizations and initiatives focused on increasing representation including the National Organization of Minority Architects, Riding the Vortex, [25] 400 FORWARD, Hip Hop Architecture, First 500, [26] and Beyond the Built Environment. [27] [28]
Tuskegee University is a private, historically black land-grant university in Tuskegee, Alabama. It was founded on July 4th in 1881 by Lewis Adams, and Booker T. Washington with help from the Alabama legislature via funding from two politicians seeking black votes.
Wallace Augustus Rayfield (1874–1941), was an American architect and educator. He was the second formally educated practicing African American architect in the United States.
Robert Robinson Taylor was an American architect and educator. Taylor was the first African-American student enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the first accredited African-American architect when he graduated in 1892. He was an early and influential member of the Tuskegee Institute faculty.
Julian Francis Abele was a prominent mixed race American architect, and chief designer in the offices of Horace Trumbauer. He contributed to the design of more than 400 buildings, including the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University (1912–15), Philadelphia's Central Library (1917–27), and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1914–28). He was the primary designer of the west campus of Duke University (1924–54).
Albert Irvin Cassell (1895–1969) was a prominent mid-20th-century African-American architect in Washington, D.C., whose work shaped many academic communities in the United States. He designed buildings for Howard University in Washington D.C., Morgan State University in Baltimore, and Virginia Union University in Richmond. Cassell also designed and built civic structures for the State of Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Norma Merrick Sklarek was an American architect. Sklarek was the first African American woman to become a licensed architect in the states of New York (1954) and California (1962), as well as the first Black woman to become a member of the American Institute of Architecture (AIA). Her notable works include the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Japan (1976) and the Terminal One station at the Los Angeles International Airport (1984).Sklarek is credited with helping to pave the way for other female and minority architects. AIA board member Anthony Costello called her the “Rosa Parks of architecture” in the AIA newsletter.
John A. Lankford, American architect. He was the first professionally licensed African American architect in Virginia in 1922 and in the District of Columbia in 1924. He has been regarded as the "dean of black architecture".
George Washington Foster Jr., was an American architect. He was among the first African-American architects licensed by the State of New Jersey in 1908, and later New York (1916). Foster partnered with Vertner Woodson Tandy (1885–1949), the first African-American architect licensed by the State of New York, in the firm of Tandy and Foster, which was active from 1908 to 1914.
Walter Thomas Bailey was an American architect from Kewanee, Illinois. He was the first African American graduate with a bachelor of science degree in architectural engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the first licensed African-American architect in the state of Illinois. He worked at the Tuskegee Institute, and practiced in both Memphis and Chicago. Walter T. Bailey became the second African American that graduated from the University of Illinois.
Ethel Bailey Furman was an American architect who was the earliest known African-American female architect in Virginia.
Georgia Louise Harris Brown, is considered to be the second African American woman to become a licensed architect in the United States. She was also the first black woman to earn a degree in architecture from the University of Kansas. She was also the only black member of the Chicago chapter of Alpha Alpha Gamma.
Beverly Lorraine Greene, was an American architect. According to architectural editor Dreck Spurlock Wilson, she was "believed to have been the first African-American female licensed as an architect in the United States." She was registered as an architect in Illinois in 1942.
Robert Prince Madison is an American architect.
Wesley Howard Henderson, is an American architect, educator, and historian. He is an assistant professor at the Robert R. Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science at Tuskegee University, and is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA). Particularly notable is Henderson's dissertation on Paul Revere Williams, celebrated as the most in-depth examination of the career of Williams, a prominent and celebrated African American architect.
Louis Hudson Persley (c.1888–1932), was an American architect. Persley became the first African American to register with the new Georgia State Board of Registered Architects on April 5, 1920. He was part of what was possibly the nation’s first black architecture firm, Taylor and Persley, a partnership founded in July 1920 with Robert Robinson Taylor. He had several spellings of his name including Louis Hudison Persely, Lewis H. Persley, and Louis Pursley.
Howard Hamilton Mackey Sr., (1901–1987), was an American architect, painter, educator, and academic administrator. For 50 years he worked at Howard University, from 1924 until 1973; including serving as the department head, and associate dean.
William Augustus Hazel (1854–1929) was an American architect, stained glass artist, educator, academic administrator, and civil rights activist. He was the first dean of the Howard University School of Architecture in 1919. He is considered an important figure in the architectural history of the Twin Cities in Minnesota; and was one of the first Black stained glass artists in the United States.
Donald Frank White was a Canadian-born American architect and engineer, of African descent. He was the first Black architect registered in the states of Alabama and Michigan. He had been a partner of the firm of White & Griffin Architecture–Engineering Associates; and he later worked in the firms of Giffels & Vallet, and Nathan Johnson & Associates. He also worked in the 1950s for the United States government in designing structures in Liberia. White was the first Black graduate from the School of Architecture at University of Michigan, both in the undergraduate and graduate program. He was the first Black member of the Detroit chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and an early member of the national chapter.
Louis Edwin Fry Sr.,, (1903–2000) was an American architect and professor. He was a former chair of the department of architecture at Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C.. Fry was a registered architect in Alabama, Washington, D.C., Maryland, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. He was known for his college and university campus architectural designs. Fry primarily worked at HBUs and state school designing buildings and campus plans, such as Prairie View A&M University; Howard University; Tuskegee University; Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama; and Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. Fry was a founding member of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA). He was a partner in the architectural firm of Fry & Welch.
Francis Eugene Griffin (1910–1973) was an American architect. He was a pioneering Black architect in Detroit and helped influence many other early career Black architects in the city. He was part of the architectural firms White & Griffin, and later Ward, Griffin, & Agee, and Francis E. Griffin Associates, Architects, & Planners. Griffin also worked in the 1950s for the United States government in designing structures in Liberia. His name is also spelled Frances E. Griffin.
To help get students interested, Sablan founded Beyond the Built Environment in 2017, a platform dedicated to amplifying the work of women and people of color who are architects around the world.
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