[10] Abele was the main designer of Duke University's west campus. Here are some of America's most notable Black architects who paved the way for today's minority builders. When we began there were only 48 licensed women. 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. 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. who worked in Chicago and Brazil with Mies. 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. 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). His father, Calvin Brent, was the son of an enslaved person and was himself the first Black architect in Washington, D.C, where John was born. We also used the data collected from the first edition to facilitate our research profiling the roles that African American architects play in education and in practice, including those who are owners of firms, those who are partners in firms, those who are employees in both the public and private sectors, and those who are educators. Dr. Jackie Craven has over 20 years of experience writing about architecture and the arts. "Isolation and Diversity in Architecture". Although much of the credit for a building goes to the design architect, the dogged attention to construction detail and the managing of an architectural firm may be more important. Robert Traynham Coles is noted for designing on a grand scale.

African American architects represent about 2% of all licensed architects (113,000) and African American women represent approximately 0.3%. 0 Reviews. We listed only eighty-four women in the 1996 directory. 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.

Brad Grant & Dennis Mann. September 11 Memorials - Architecture of Remembrance, Biography of Rem Koolhaas, Dutch Architect. We confirm that all licensees are in fact licensed by consulting the state board of architecture registration website for their home state. How Did Architecture Become a Licensed Profession? More recently, we have added a listing of licensed landscape architects. 2003. As of September 2018, there are 2,239 licensed African American Architects in the database. "Young African American Women Architects sharpen ties to their communities." In that same year, only 3.6 percent of the graduates from both of those programs were African American. 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. The second edition of the directory (1996) continued our efforts to provide an up-to-date and accurate listing of licensed African American architects. This is true not only for practice but also for architectural education. Today more and more young interns follow the site—and often ask to be added as soon as they learn they’ve passed the Architect Registration Examination. Building on the family legacy, the firm is still active and has worked on thousands of facilities, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture (managed design and construction) and the MLK Memorial (architect of record), both in Washington, D.C. Julian Abele was one of America's most important architects, but he never signed his work and was not publicly acknowledged in his lifetime.


Robert R. Taylor (1868-1942) Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, a 20-year-old Robert R. Taylor … The grandson of an African-born enslaved person, Moses McKissack III was a master builder. Some architects like Julian Francis Abele, and Paul Revere Williams were able to obtain an architectural degree from top universities, an architectural license, and positions at top architectural firms. Williams designed residential buildings as well as churches, schools, and other commercial buildings.[11]. Kilment, Stephen A. She is the author of two books on home decor and sustainable design. [12] Greene went on to work on international projects such as UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and designed buildings for NYU. African American Architects in Current Practice. For more details, see our Privacy Policy. Today Abele is celebrated on campus. The Pacific Design Center, West Hollywood, California. [12] She struggled to be noticed because of her race. Black female architects continue to turn to Sklarek as an inspiration and role model. Coles found it difficult to substantiate that there were two thousand architects in current practice based on his own observations and experiences with African American architects between 1969 and 1989. Nevertheless, there are a number of Black architects who have managed, designed, and constructed some of today's most admired structures. "20 on 20/20 vision: Perspectives on Diversity and Design." The Controversial Memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. About Arad's Design for the National 9/11 Memorial, the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City, Doctor of Arts, University of Albany, SUNY, M.S., Literacy Education, University of Albany, SUNY, B.A., English, Virginia Commonwealth University. National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C. Duke University Chapel, Durham, Norrh Carolina. African American architects are also senior partners in majority-owned firms, deans in prestigious architecture schools, and administrators in governmental agencies. The African American architectural tradition continues today. Mayor of Charlotte Harvey Gantt, Democratic Candidate for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina, 1990. The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards estimates that, at the end of 2013 there were 105,847 licensed architects in the United States. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Louis Arnett Stuart Bellinger (1891–1946). 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. Founded in 1906, the fraternity has "supplied voice and vision to the struggle of African Americans and people of color around the world."
[12] She was based out of Illinois, and started her practice in Chicago.

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. Gantt's political life also began in North Carolina, as he moved from a member of the city council to become the first Black mayor of Charlotte.

We decided to create a website that could be updated instantaneously as we received new information. Architect Robert Robinson Taylor on 2015 Black Heritage Stamp Series. Donations can be made via PayPal to hello@architexx.org or by check in the mail to ArchiteXX, 250 Cambridge St. Syracuse, NY 13210.

Over the past twenty-seven years we’ve been fortunate to widen our contact network as well as discover that our website shows up first in Google searches for “African American Architects.” When we’ve asked someone who contacts us about being added to the Directory how they discovered the site, their response is often that they didn’t know it existed and they found it after searching for African American or black architects online. Robert Robinson Taylor is widely considered to be the first academically trained and credentialed Black architect in America. "Is there a Black Architect in the house?" Each of the founders, including Tandy, is often referred to as "Jewels." 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. For years prior, the architecture industry was dominated by white men. Jim Crow Laws enforced segregation of White and Blacks, therefore promoting direct racism. Fortunately, Bond had spent a summer in Los Angeles working for Black architect Paul Williams and he knew that he could overcome racial stereotypes. In 1958, he received a Fulbright scholarship to study in Paris and went on to live in Ghana for four years. In Austin, the numbers paint an even bleaker picture: fewer than .1 percent of more than 1,100 licensed architects are African-American.