Germane Barnes (born 1985) [1] [2] is an American architect, designer [3] and an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Miami in Florida. [4] Barnes was a recipient of the 2021 Rome Prize in Architecture and the 2021 Wheelwright Prize. [5]
Barnes was born and raised in the West Side of Chicago, Illinois. [6] [7] He studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he received a Bachelor's of Science in Architecture in 2008. [8] After graduation, he worked in an architecture practice in Cape Town, South Africa on pro-bono projects for underprivileged communities. [8] [9] Upon return to the United States, he attended Graduate School and received a Master of Architecture degree from Woodbury University in Burbank, California, where he was awarded the Graduate Thesis Prize. [10] [11]
Continuing his professional experience, he became a designer in residence for the Opa Locka Community Development Corporation in Florida, providing design solutions for communities in need. [8] [11] [12] During the residency he created community events based around the abandoned buildings in the Triangle area of Opa Locka, and helped residents transform an abandoned lot into a community park. [7] [13] He later established his own practice Studio Barnes, LLC in Miami. [14]
Barnes received a research grant from the Graham Foundation in 2018 for this project proposal 'Sacred Stoops: Typological Studies of Black Congregational Spaces'. [15] Within this scholarship, he was able to analyze five American cities (Atlanta, Washington D.C., Chicago, Detroit, Houston) with the focus on architectural typologies in relationship to African-American culture. [16] In February 2021, his work was part of the MoMA Exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America. [17] It was MoMA’s first architecture exhibition highlighting the synthesis between architecture and African-American cultures and communities. [18] He was a founding member of the Black Reconstruction Collective, a group created by members of the MoMA show. [19] New York Times' Art and Design critic Michael Kimmelman wrote that the group's intention is to “reclaim the larger civic promise of architecture.” [20]
Barnes has been commissioned by Jack Guthman, chairman of the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, to create work for the 2021 Chicago Architecture Biennial. [21]
Barnes was awarded the 2021 Wheelwright Prize by Harvard University Graduate School of Design. [5] The award is aimed to support early career creatives within their design research. [22] He was also a recipient of the 2021 Rome Prize in Architecture from the American Academy in Rome [23] [24] and was awarded the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers. [25]
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)