Rodney Leon | |
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Alma mater | Pratt Institute School of Architecture Yale University |
Occupation | Architect |
Website | http://www.rodneyleon.com/home |
Rodney Leon is an American architect. He is the founder of Rodney Leon Architect. He is the designer of the monument The Ark of Return , and the memorial for the New York City African Burial Ground National Monument. [1] He specializes in urban planning projects in the United States of America, and abroad, projects with cultural, residential, and religious. [2] [3] [4] He is a member of The Haitian Roundtable (HRT). It is an organization of the Haitian-American professionals committed to civic engagement as well as philanthropic endeavors to benefit Haiti. It was started in 2008. [5]
Leon was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were immigrants from Haiti. [6] [7]
In 1992, Leon received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Pratt Institute School of Architecture in New York City. In 1995, he received a Master of Architecture from Yale University. From 1998 to 2003, he was visiting design professor at Pratt Institute School of Architecture in New York City. In 2003 he was 2nd year design coordinator for Pratt in 2003. He is as an adjunct professor of advanced design since 2009. Since 2014 Leon is a capital and planning grants reviewer for the New York State Council of the Arts. [8]
In 1998, Leon submitted a proposal to design the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City. He was one of the five designers selected from 61 applicants. In 2005, he was designated the official designer for the monument. Rodney Leon was designer, and co-founder along with Nicole Hollant-Denis of the AARRIS Architects were chosen to build the $3 million permanent memorial. The memorial was built on the colonial-era burial ground of enslaved Africans in lower Manhattan, in New York City. The grave site was found in 1991. [3] [9] [10]
Leon is the designer of The Ark of Return , a permanent memorial to victims of the Atlantic slave trade. His design was chosen by UNESCO as part of an international competition. It is installed at the United Nations Plaza in New York City, where it was unveiled on March 25, 2015 as part of the United Nations' International Decade for People of African Descent and to commemorate the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, Sam Kutesa the President of the United Nations General Assembly, and Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller of Jamaica were the ribbon cutters during the unveiling ceremony. [11]
Leon is a member of American Institute of Architects (AIA), and National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA). [12] Leon and Nicole Hollant-Denis are the principal architects for Belle Rive Residential Resort in Jacmel, Haiti. It is a private resort style residential development with 94 townhouses, tower apartments, and a 120-room four start hotel and private club.
Leon is a member of American Institute of Architects (AIA), and National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA). [12] Leon and Nicole Hollant-Denis are the principal architects for Belle Rive Residential Resort in Jacmel, Haiti. It is a private resort style residential development with 94 townhouses, tower apartments, and a 120-room four start hotel and private club.
Daniel Libeskind is a Polish-American architect, artist, professor and set designer. Libeskind founded Studio Daniel Libeskind in 1989 with his wife, Nina, and is its principal design architect.
African Burial Ground National Monument is a monument at Duane Street and African Burial Ground Way in the Civic Center section of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Its main building is the Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway. The site contains the remains of more than 419 Africans buried during the late 17th and 18th centuries in a portion of what was the largest colonial-era cemetery for people of African descent, some free, most enslaved. Historians estimate there may have been as many as 10,000–20,000 burials in what was called the Negroes Burial Ground in the 18th century. The five to six acre site's excavation and study was called "the most important historic urban archaeological project in the United States." The Burial Ground site is New York's earliest known African-American cemetery; studies show an estimated 15,000 African American people were buried here.
Shockoe Bottom historically known as Shockoe Valley, is an area in Richmond, Virginia, just east of downtown, along the James River. Located between Shockoe Hill and Church Hill, Shockoe Bottom contains much of the land included in Colonel William Mayo's 1737 plan of Richmond, making it one of the city's oldest neighborhoods.
A rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of cemetery that became popular in the United States and Europe in the mid-19th century due to the overcrowding and health concerns of urban cemeteries, which tended to be churchyards. Rural cemeteries were typically built 1–5 mi (1.6–8.0 km) outside of the city, far enough to be separated from the city, but close enough for visitors. They often contain elaborate monuments, memorials, and mausoleums in a landscaped park-like setting.
The United Nations Slavery Memorial, officially known as The Ark of Return – The Permanent Memorial at the United Nations in Honour of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, is an installation at the Visitors' Plaza of the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, intended as a permanent reminder of the long-lasting effects of slavery and the Transatlantic slave trade. It was designed by Rodney Leon, a Haitian-American architect, and installed in 2015.
Reparations for slavery is the application of the concept of reparations to victims of slavery and/or their descendants. There are concepts for reparations in legal philosophy and reparations in transitional justice. Reparations can take many forms, including practical and financial assistance to the descendants of enslaved people, acknowledgements or apologies to peoples or nations negatively affected by slavery, or honouring the memories of people who were enslaved by naming things after them.
The United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Korea, located at Tanggok in the Nam District, City of Busan, Republic of Korea, is a burial ground for United Nations Command (UNC) casualties of the Korean War. It contains 2,300 graves and is the only United Nations cemetery in the world. Laid out over 14 hectares, the graves are set out in 22 sites designated by the nationalities of the buried servicemembers.
The Sandy Ground Historical Museum, located within the Sandy Ground community of Rossville in the borough of Staten Island, is dedicated to the oldest continuously inhabited free black settlement in the United States. The museum is home to the largest documentary collection of Staten Island's African-American culture and history and it may also be home to the only intact 18th -century African cemetery in America. As of February 2023, it is temporarily closed due to maintenance and operational issues
International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade is a United Nations international observance designated in 2007 to be marked on 25 March every year.
The International Decade for People of African Descent, 2015–2024, was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in a Resolution (68/237) adopted on 23 December 2013. The theme of the International Decade is "People of African descent: recognition, justice and development".
Human trafficking in New York is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor. It occurs in the state of New York and is widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery. It includes, "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial, is a memorial to commemorate the black victims of lynching in the United States. It is intended to focus on and acknowledge past racial terrorism and advocate for social justice in America. Founded by the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative, it opened in downtown Montgomery, Alabama on April 26, 2018.
The Ted Weiss Federal Building, also known as the Foley Square Federal Building, is a 34-story United States Federal Building at 290 Broadway in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Opened in 1994, the building was developed by Linpro New York Realty and designed by Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum (HOK), with Raquel Ramati Associates as the design consultant and Tishman Construction as the general contractor. The building is named for Ted Weiss (1927–1992), a U.S. representative from New York.
Delois Blakely, also referred to with the honorary title Queen Mother, is an American former Catholic nun and current religious leader, pan-Africanist, writer, activist and humanitarian.
The Memorial to Enslaved Laborers is a memorial in honor of those enslaved African Americans who built and worked at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Frederick Douglass Memorial Park is a historic cemetery for African Americans in the Oakwood neighborhood of Staten Island, New York. It is named for abolitionist, orator, statesman, and author Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), although he is not buried there. It has burial sites for numerous prominent African Americans, including a pioneering journalist, athletes, musicians, performers, political leaders, and business people. The park was designated a New York City designated landmark in June 2024.
Nicole Hollant-Denis is an American architect, founder and principal of Aaris Design Studios. She is best known for her work on the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City, for which she won the NOMA Design Excellence Honor Award. Hollant-Denis's other projects include the redesign of La Marqueta Plaza in Harlem, New York.
The Slavery Memorial is a sculptural memorial on the campus of Brown University that recognizes the institution's 18th century connections to chattel slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. Designed by sculptor Martin Puryear and dedicated in 2014, the memorial stands on the university's Front Green, adjacent to University Hall.
Pascale Sablan is an American architect and designer. She is an associate principal at Adjaye Associates and became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2021. Sablan advocates on behalf of women and BIPOC people in architecture as the founder and executive director of Beyond the Built Environment. She previously worked for FXFOWLE and S9 Architecture.