FACE of the AIA Diversity: What the Numbers Tell Us

VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS OCTOBER 13, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA Diversity: What the Numbers Tell Us

were discouraged in more or less subtle ways by their instructors from embracing architecture as a career, and simply by persevering fought their way through architecture school and into practice. Others, from more privileged backgrounds, found their way into practice with fewer bumps, but not without facing various forms of discrimination in architecture school and beyond. Some have aspired to owning their own firm; others have sought the special status conferred through a full partnership in a large, establishment, majority-owned firm. Still others have found careers in the public service, with its security and solid benefits—permanently or as a stepping stone to private practice. Fi- nally, a small contingent—a little over a hundred, took to teaching full-time in the architecture schools, providing a steady income and offering a modest by Stephen A. Kliment, FAIA many successes to balance the bad supplemental income by taking on news. But all this does little actually to small design projects. “Merely engaging in high-minded advance the cause of greater oppor- debates about theoretical future tunity for black architects. In the Old The mood today. reductions while continuing to steadily West, they had a pithier phrase than Al A small number of black-owned firms increase emissions represents a self- Gore’s sincere but plodding language: operate on the same lines as major- delusional and reckless approach. In Talk is cheap but it takes money to buy ity firms. They win a share of work some ways, that approach is worse whiskey. from private and public sources, than doing nothing at all, because though more from the public patron. it lulls the gullible into thinking that African American architects licensed But many other firms work very hard something is actually being done, to practice in one or more of the to carry on—because they are small, when in fact it is not.” states at press time numbered 1,558, or because they lack the benefits —Al Gore, in a speech at NYU Law of whom 185 are women. There’s of networking, because, as the late School, quoted in The NY Times Sep- no single model. Black practitioners Chicago-based publishing magnate tember 19, 2006 range across a vast spectrum of firm and publisher of Ebony, John Johnson size, ownership, employment status, once told me, they’re “outside the Al Gore’s objection to lots of talk but gender, personal history, location, self- area of gossip.” So they end up with little action in reducing emissions appraisal, and aspirations. a low volume of work and unadven- has something in common with the turous clients, and they miss out on urge to say the right things about the Some of the architects came from opportunities to do pioneering work, challenges facing African American humble beginnings, grew up in attract attention, make the profes- architects, even though there are segregated or all-black high schools, sional journals, and recruit the most VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS OCTOBER 13, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA talented staff. work not demanded of their majority over the recent past. One bright sign, colleagues. They are often denied the happily, is that profitability levels of One example of barriers benefit of the doubt at promotion time black-owned firms typically rival, even broken when matched against majority and exceed those of majority firms. When John Johnson (1918–2005), was female colleagues. Some succeed planning the new world headquarters despite the odds. For example, Ralph (Note: Where figures designate only for Johnson Publishing in Chicago’s Jackson, FAIA, about whose life more African Americans, it is so stated. Oth- Loop, he turned to Dubin, Dubin, in a later episode, is now the design erwise, the term minorities includes Moutoussamy. John Moutoussamy partner in the 132-year-old Boston Asian and Hispanic/Latino groups and (1920-1995), name partner in the firm Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and a breakdown was not available.) Chicago firm had designed schools, Abbott. colleges, apartment buildings. But he For a start, here are some totals. had never designed and completed Many African American practitioners U.S. Census Bureau’s 2004 Commu- an office building because no white are employed by industry, public nity Survey figures [http://factfinder. person would ever let him do it. agencies, and as faculty at schools of census.gov/servlet] show that out of architecture. This gives offers them a a population of 285,691,501 at the Said Johnson: “Now I’m black and certain security more seldom afforded time of the survey (the population on he’s black. If he can’t build my build- owners or employees in private archi- October 1, 2006, actually stood at ing, whose building can he build? You tectural practice. 299,879,191, but the demographics know, he has the same credentials as breakdowns weren’t yet available), all the other architects, he’s a mem- Some revealing statistics 34.8 million were African American. ber of a respectable firm. And I said, The bare figures defining the status That’s 12.1 percent, a ratio that has ‘All I know is I’m in the publishing of African American architects are remained constant over the past business and I will have to let people nevertheless shameful. I use them as decade. know that you [the bank] turned me the basis of this first episode in the down because I had a black architect, diversity series. Note the low levels of Switching now to the architect fully qualified, and the only reason is black architects as a percentage of population of the United States, the he has never built an office building all architects, when compared to their numbers depend on the source. The before is because you and people like numbers in the overall U.S. popula- 2000 U.S. Census Bureau figures—the you never allowed him to build it.’” tion; the modest levels of black faculty latest available—place the number of in the schools of architecture and the architects at 192,860, a hugely inflated So Johnson, leading publisher of low percentage of black students; figure that includes unlicensed and black-directed media, broke down and the scarce rate of improvement any unregistered individuals who call long-standing biases against black- owned property in Chicago’s Loop and insisted on having the black partner of a Chicago firm design his company’s headquarters. I will cover this and other stories of barrier-breaking patrons in a later episode of this diversity series.

Black architects as individuals By virtue of being in a tiny numeri- cal minority, black architects often work as lone individuals in a firm, and thanks to remnants of racist attitudes, are often closely scrutinized and expected to produce a level of VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS OCTOBER 13, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA themselves architects. figure were not the base numbers so prise as one that is at least 51-percent A far more accurate number is the small, as they end up exaggerating owned and controlled by minorities.” 101,179 recognized by the National percentage increases. The number of women principals and Council of Architectural Registration partners rose from 11.2 percent in Boards as having passed the licens- Using the AIA’s own figures in its 1999 to 20.7 percent three years later. ing exam in their state (NCARB neither DDAR, 1% of its 52,000 registered- collects nor maintains demographic architect members are black, 2% are Minorities account for 16 percent data on it registrants on the advice of Hispanic/Latino, and 3% Asian. of architecture staff at AIA member- counsel, according to the summary of owned firms. And though this includes a demographic diversity audit report The black-owned firm non-black minorities (but not women), (DDAR) issued by the AIA in Decem- Here’s another type of measure: the it has not even begun to approach the ber 2005. numbers of black-owned firms. Ac- combined percentage of those three cording to Mann, 608 of the 1,558 minorities in the overall U.S. popula- Now if we see eye to eye with the names in his database have identified tion (about 25 percent). argument—and I see no reason not themselves as firm owners, or 39 per- to—that in a just society African cent, an intriguingly high ratio, which, The good news: American architects’ representation Mann told me, ranges from large profitability in their profession should match their firms such as Columbus-Ohio based Some 75 percent of minority firms representation in the population, and Moody-Nolan all the way to one-per- reported profits of 10 percent or more taking NCARB’s statistic of 101,179 as son firms. (Many of these one-person before taxes, discretionary bonuses a base, then 12.1 percent of architects firm pricipals have regular day jobs and profit-sharing. Not only were the should be black. In truth, the actual ra- as employees and work on indepen- minority firms profits higher than the tio, using Dennis Alan Mann’s Center dent projects after hours. Twenty-one rate for all firms; of those which cited for the Study of Practice, University percent of minority partners are sole a loss, minority firms accounted for of Cincinnati database of 1,558 black practitioners, according to the AIA’s slightly less than the average for all registered architects, is 1.5 percent, a latest (2003) Business of Architecture firms, which was 13 percent. figure that has changed little in recent report, but that includes all minorities years. Note that 185 of the 1,558, except women, who are tabulated The best explanation, according to or 11.9 percent, are women. If you separately. Pradeep Dalal, formerly AIA’s director compare these numbers with the ones of economics and market research, is contained in Mann’s 1991 database Meanwhile, of the total of 17,589 that minority firms, as defined above, (870 architects, 49 of them women), firms listed as AIA firms, 6 percent, or are eligible for minority set aside the last 15 years have seen a great 1,055, are shown as minority-owned status and are slightly larger than the surge of 63 percent for black men and firms, according to 2006 AIA figures, percentage for “all firms” resulting in 278 percent for women, for a total a decline from the 1,190 existing in slightly higher profitability and slightly increase of 79 percent from 1991 to 2000. The federal government defines lower losses. Moreover, minority firms 2006. This would be an encouraging a “minority-owned business enter- reportedly take on a broader range of building types, and the better balance in typologies is more likely to produce profits than would a lop-sided workload.

Note: to be eligible for minority status, firms must self-identify themselves as a minority-owned firm. The status comes with limitations in ownership and size. To be so designated by a public agency, a minority firm must be 51 percent minority-owned and must be under a maximum size based on volume and type of work. That’s VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS OCTOBER 13, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA a trade off that could retard a firm’s slender. The current NAAB database overall growth. A comparison of school graduation shows a total of 109 fulltime faculty and career attrition rates is useful. (50 tenured), compared to 105 Asian Many inside and outside the profes- That’s the ratio of graduates who (52 tenured) and 142 Hispanic (67 ten- sion have attacked set aside programs ended up as architects versus those ured), out of a fulltime faculty total of because they allegedly create an who left to go into other lines of about just under 2087 (1254 tenured). artificially-protected practice environ- work. The post graduation attrition (The Hispanic figures are skewed ment. Yet these rules have helped rate for architects as a whole is said by the presence of large numbers of many minority firms get a start in the to be around 45 percent; the ratio Hispanic faculty at the Universities marketplace. for African Americans (68.4 percent) of Miami and Puerto Rico). The ratio stands out as a tragic waste of talent, of black to total architectural faculty Dennis Mann estimates that 47 expenditure, and initiative. That is the is thus 109/2087 or 5.2 percent. In percent (39 percent who are own- price the entire profession pays for 1997 it was 6.5 percent; in 1983, 4.4 ers plus 8 percent as employees) of the severe challenges black architects percent. the black architects who work in the face in practice—a mix of reluctant private sector work in firms that are patrons, unsupportive majority firms, The ratio at HBCU colleges is less 100 percent black-owned; some five social attitudes, and low pay. than encouraging. Out of a total of years ago Mann estimated that only 47 fulltime faculty at the five HBCU 16 percent worked in white or white/ Faculty presence lags schools, 21 are African American, other minority owned firms, but he Black faculty representation in or 45 percent. The highest ratio is at sees these numbers rising as younger America’s schools of architecture is Howard University (75 percent); the black architects join majority firms. Meanwhile, 217 or 14 percent of black architects work in the public sector.

In school The enrollments of black students and the presence of black faculty in the schools of architecture have long been a reflection of black architects’ status in the profession as a whole.

The nation’s architecture schools fall roughly into three types—private, state, and HBCUs (Historic Black College and University). Five HBCUs exist offering NAAB-accredited de- grees—two in the south, three in the mid-Atlantic states.

The number of fulltime professional degree students in all accredited schools totaled 21,107, according to latest available NAAB sources, of which 1268 were African American or 6 percent. Comparative figures for Asian students came to 1728 or 8.1 percent and Hispanic students 1877 or 8.9 percent. For details, visit NAAB’s Web site. [http://www.naab. org/] VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS OCTOBER 13, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA lowest at Prairie View A&M University cal role patrons and patronage hold (29 percent), according to current in shaping the prospects of black NAAB figures. The March 2007 epi- architects. sode of this series will offer a closer exploration of the status and pros- Also coming up is the role of black pects of black students and faculty at women in the profession, and finally U.S. schools of architecture. a look at the three great drivers that if applied will shape the prospects of More than numbers the African American architect for the With a few exceptions, such as profit- better for generations to come. ability, the numbers are not encouraging, And there’s a lot these figures Captions: don’t tell you—about the anguish 1. “The Builders,” by Jacob Law- many black employees of majority rence, 1947. Photo: The Jacob and firms feel as they look around them Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation/Art and find they’re often the only ones of Resource, N.Y. their race, closely scrutinized; about the extra effort many black-owned 2. For the Africana Studies and Re- firms feel they must exert—often with search Center expansion by Shepley inferior resources and less glamorous Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott, prin- commissions—in order to be ac- cipal architect Ralph T. Jackson, FAIA, cepted by clients on the same basis uses texture and color to establish the as majority firms. They don’t tell you program’s identity and presence on about the slights when a black client the Cornell campus. goes to a majority architect for design services.

But you’ll see in upcoming episodes of this monthly series that there’s much for black as well as majority architects to feel good about. Look for a parade of significant innovative work by an array of quality-conscious black practitioners, along with stirring stories on how some had a smooth path to success, some overcame steep professional, social, financial and personal hurdles.

In November, expect a look at fas- cinating black trailblazers. The July 2007 episode will explore African identity by examining historic Afri- can architectural roots. These have prompted many black architects and critics to advance Afrocentrism as a counterbalance to the dominant Eurocentric mindset that drives contemporary teaching and architecture criticism. And in the September 2007 episode, get a glimpse at the criti- VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

DIVERSITY The Trailblazers

by Stephen A. Kliment, FAIA of black carpenters, masons, painters, the phenomenal growth of the cotton, Contributing Editor ironworkers, and glaziers to the de- tobacco, and sugar-based economy sign, construction, maintenance, and of the Old South spawned a spate of How far back to trace the emergence operation of the plantation houses, construction activity. of a black architecture profession is farm buildings, and slave quarters, as a matter for debate. The first blacks well as the few public buildings of that This greatly affected the black bonds- arrived in America in late August 1619 era. people. The volume, scope, and and were identified as indentured variety of building types on and off servants. Little is known about who For a more rigorous assessment of the plantation—from the big house to they were, their skills, or what craft the status of the black architect and storage and agricultural processing they practiced. craftsman, one must fast forward structures, slave quarters, and eventu- another 100 years to Reconstruction ally churches, academic buildings, In 1652 and 1654, two freed blacks and the years following, when many and large public buildings such as the were granted land—550 acres and emancipated African Americans were commercial and government buildings 100 acres respectively in Northampton able to make a living as skilled crafters at Williamsburg—all ended up em- County on what is now the Delmarva and design professionals. bracing the design and crafts talents Peninsula, Va.—in reward for import- of the black slave population. ing servants, presumably indentured, The status, roles, and contributions as there was a great shortage of of African Americans may be grouped Until 1700, the concept of the separa- hands to perform useful work. The roughly into three phases—colonial tion of races had not yet hardened into acres needed tilling and demanded and antebellum (1619–1863); emanci- the rigid racial lines that later came the planning and construction of pation, Reconstruction, and the rise of to mark American social attitudes. It dwellings and farm buildings, no the professional architect (1863–1945); seems that whites never even thought doubt patterned on the wooden salt and post-World War II, civil rights, and of themselves as white but rather as box structures typical of the East post-civil rights (1945–present). English or Dutch, and they did not Coast from Virginia to Massachusetts. consider Africans as blacks or Ne- Colonial and antebellum groes, but as dark skinned people but A more logical starting point is to (1619–1863) otherwise racially indeterminate. fast forward by 100 years to an era The precise roles of blacks in the when the big southern plantations building of early America is blurred The demands of running were emerging, and when slavery in by the vagueness of most records in America had developed in its fullest indicating whether a particular crafts- a community as large form. Here more is known, because man or builder was black or white. By and complex as a planta- records kept by the plantation man- the 18th century, opportunities to build tion, and given the small agers included facts, figures, and were becoming available to—indeed, drawings depicting the contributions were being forced upon—blacks as minority of white peo- VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA ple…the preponderance ing outbuildings. These consisted of of craft work fell upon the kitchen; smokehouse; dairy; icehouse; slave population. craft shops; storehouses; stables; barns; pig house; buildings containing production machinery for processing Against this background, the role of sugar cane, tobacco, cotton, and rice; the slaves as builders and craftsmen clinics; dining rooms; chapels; the (there is no evidence that women overseer’s house; and, of course, the engaged in the building crafts, as their slave quarters. principal roles were as field workers and mothers) is largely established. Slave craftsmen learned their trade Toward the end of the slavery era, on the job. Some were sent off to white planters increasingly sought trade schools and disseminated their formal credit for the design and skills on the plantation. No distinct construction of the myriad types of style emerged during this long period dwellings and work buildings that covering the late 17th, the entire 18th, dotted the plantation. The reason, and a large part of the 19th centuries. according to Ferguson, was that the Except for the Big House, the form, white planters had to demonstrate materials, and construction of the their total superiority over their slaves outbuildings and slave quarters were a in every possible way, and the credit straightforward expression of avail- An occasional white craftsman from for planning the plantations, peripheral able materials, space demands, and the old country provided guidance, buildings, and their furnishings was craftsmanship. Glass was expensive, but the substance of the Big House one talent they wished to air as their and most of the structures had small was slave-built. So was much of the own. openings; even those were seldom furniture, although the most prosper- glazed. ous of the southern planters had In the event, the demands of running some of their furniture shipped from a community as large and complex The role of slave craftsmen in build- England or France. Both white and as a plantation, and given the small ing the Big House is not widely docu- slave communities considered black minority of white people—especially in mented. The great mansions, such as craftsmen an elite, and the plant- what became South Carolina, Georgia, Mount Vernon, Westover, Monticello, ers gave them special treatment and Alabama, and Louisiana—the prepon- and Evergreen, were clearly patterned privileges, among the most prized derance of craft work fell upon the on English originals. Having one’s own being the opportunity to practice their slave population. Those who practiced Robert Adam-like manor was consid- trades without the backbreaking toil of the trades most in demand—car- ered, at least until Independence, as a the fields. penters, coopers, masons, spinners, sign of prestige, much like today when tanners, blacksmiths, shoemakers, erecting a 16,000-square-foot trophy As many as 10 percent of the slave distillers—were slaves. mansion in Southampton or an $18 community were of the craftsman million pad in Malibu. Therefore, in its class. The elite status extended into Since buildings in those years were general outline, form, and ornament, the American independence. Historian largely the job of carpenters and ma- Big House tended to follow English pro- John Michael Vlach gives this account sons, one must look at the customs totypes, with some variations, such as of Thomas Hemmings, one of Thomas that linked programming, design, and the large porch and dog run breezeways Jefferson’s slave carpenters: building on the estate. Contrary to the to accommodate the hot climate. northern custom—dictated largely by “Hemmings had prolonged his stay cold weather, comfort, and conve- The role of slave crafts- at a neighboring plantation, where he nience—of consolidating functions in was engaged in a demanding series of a few large structures, the south was men in building the Big repairs. Jefferson wanted him back at noted for doing the opposite. Every House is not widely doc- Monticello, but Hemmings deflected tub, as it were, sat on its own bottom. umented. his demand, writing at the end of a The estate was an array of free-stand- lengthy description of the work he was VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA doing: ‘I hope by the nex to Let [sic] Slaves in those years Yet, by the 1870s, a movement was you no when I shul finech and when were paid five dollars a under way, triggered mostly by black to send for me.’” A reply that was a month. activists, to advance the intellectual heady mix of self-confidence, determi- underpinnings of a black society. This nation, and glibness. was linked to a growing emphasis Slaves in those years were paid five on business and economic strength But always remember that the same dollars a month. The Capitol was com- as the shortest road to acceptance people who built the slave quarters, pleted in the 1860s, and the degree of blacks by the majority. As John the smoke houses, and the barns and to which black laborers worked on it Hope, who would become president stables also built the Big House, a far after emancipation is not known, since of Morehouse College, Atlanta, told more elaborate structure with complex slavery was not outlawed in Wash- the Fourth Annual Atlanta University forms, larger spans, and subtle detail. ington, D.C., for another two years Conference on the Negro in Busi- Here, too, slave craftsmanship came after the 1963 Proclamation. Former ness, advocating the founding and to bear, and although many of the Oklahoma Congressman J. C. Watts expansion of a black business class: larger, monumental plantation houses Jr., who is African American, called for “We must take in some, if not all, of were derived from English patterns a detailed study of the documents and the wages, turn it into capital, hold it, or models, there is no evidence that eventually a memorial in the Capitol to increase it.” black craftsmen and artisans were recognize those contributions. excluded from work on the Big House. Also in those years was born the Witness the demand for the Thomas With the end of the Civil War, the stress on academic development to Hemmings of that era. opportunities for those craftsmen reverse centuries of intellectual sup- declined sharply due to the influx pression. The American Negro Acad- A curious aspect to bondsmen’s con- of immigrant carpenters, masons, emy was born in 1897, with W. E. B. tributions to design and construction metalworkers, painters, and other Du Bois’ backing. Black architects and is the role of black plantation own- craftsmen; the import, from northern builders fit into this framework margin- ers—freedmen who ran their opera- states and Europe, of manufactured ally at first, held back not by lack of tions with the help of slaves just as did building products such as bricks, pre- skill but by the spirit of the patron. The their white counterparts. The details, cut lumber, and miscellaneous metal patron not only provided the capital to as described in two sources indi- products, which hitherto had been erect a new building, but would have cate that they built their Big Houses, produced on site; and last not least to entrust the commission to a racial outbuildings, and slave quarters to the the limitation some southern states group whose performance was untried same standards as did all landowners. placed on the right to contract with and whose members had to compete blacks for construction. with the white architect who was part A neglected piece of evidence of of the patrons’ social circle. black slave craftsmen’s involvement Reconstruction and the in the construction of public buildings rise of the professional Given these barriers, the years from indicates that black craftsmen and architect (1863–1945) the 1870s through the 1920s turned laborers played a big role in building Despite passage of a battery of Re- out to be surprisingly productive for the original White House and U.S. construction laws designed in part to the emerging black design profes- Capitol, which, incidentally, were built establish guidelines for the rights and sional. The reason is plain. African contemporary with the key piece to treatment of the newly freed African Americans, newly emancipated but the AIA headquarters in Washington, Americans, longstanding discrimina- suspecting with reason that the civil The Octagon. Before emancipation, tory attitudes held by whites towards rights legislation passed by Repub- pay slips uncovered in the U. S. Trea- blacks (and eventually enacted in lican post-emancipation congresses sury Department by television reporter Southern states in a series of so- would soon flounder in a sea of state- Edward Hotaling show that 400 of the called Jim Crow laws), and practices passed segregation laws, decided on 600 workers between 1792 and 1800 dealing with segregation of blacks in a line of attack of solidarity and self were black slaves whose wages were public places, schools, and vehicles help. appropriated by their owners. held black architects and builders back well into the 20th century. From a line of attack of VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA solidarity and self help, Luther King Jr. preached. ings, and college structures that were the result was a flowering beyond the design capabilities of mere of construction financed, Writes Richard K. Dozier in Spaces builders.” and Places: “Located in these com- designed, built, and oc- munities were the city’s ‘Negro’ bank Reference: cupied by blacks. buildings (by 1912, 60 of the 64 Afro- In next month’s episode, look for work American banks were in the south), by and interviews with three promi- hotels, theaters, fraternal lodges, and nent contemporary African American The result was a flowering of con- churches. Each city had its ‘Afro- practitioners. struction financed, designed, built, American Street,’ with a collection of and occupied by blacks. The partici- buildings, that to [the] Afro-American Sources for Further Reading pation of black designers, craftsmen, symbolized race progress as opposed • Bennett, Lerone, Jr. Before the and black-owned banks came about to racial segregation.” Mayflower: a History of Black America. in two settings. New York, Penguin, 1993. Special category. A category unto • Blasingame, John W., ed. Slave New towns. The first was in the new itself was the African American com- Testimony: Two Centuries of Letters, towns and communities formed by munity of Washington, D.C., centered Speeches, Interviews, and Autobiog- freed blacks, placing upon the newly on U Street. The black population in raphies, Louisiana State University arrived inhabitants the task of build- Washington had the peculiar posi- Press, 1977. ing a community from the ground tion of living in a Southern city with • Blue Book of the Jamestown Ter- up. Among these communities were a northern Republican government, Centennial Exposition, Norfolk, Va., Nicodemus, Kan.; Boley, Okla. (plus along with a substantial black popula- Colonial Publishing Company, 1907. more than two dozen other towns in tion. That, with its banks, insurance • Dozier, Richard K. “Spaces and what was a territory through 1907); companies, churches, and fraternal Places, a photographic exhibit,” 1982. Eatonville, Fla.; Mound Bayou, Miss.; lodges, gave black Washington the • Hill, Roy L. Booker T’s Child: The and Hobson City, Ala. These so-called economic power, self-directed yet sig- Life and Times of Portia Marshall “Black Towns,” later disappeared, nificant, to give birth to a flow of build- Pittman, Washington, D.C., Three weakened, ironically, by growing ing construction unequalled since. As Continents Press, 1993. integration in the mid-20th century. it flourished, it spawned a group of • Johnson, Michael P. and James L. Only a few, such as Nicodemus, have successful professional architecture Roark. Black Masters: A Free Family survived. But, in their heyday, these firms. of Color in the Old South, New York, towns provided dignity, work, and W.W. Norton & Co., 1986. self-expression to black families newly These firms used the congenial envi- • King, William E. If Gargoyles Could released from bondage. ronment of Washington as home base. Talk, Sketches of Duke University, Dur- From it they extended their practices ham, N.C., Carolina Academic Press, Old neighborhoods. The other post- all over the South. In his 1979 Catholic 1997. emancipation phenomenon was the University doctoral dissertation, Black • Koger, Larry. Black Slave Owners: concentration of black families in Architects of Washington, D.C., Harri- Free Black Slave Masters in South certain neighborhoods in some major son Mosley Ethridge states that “even Carolina 1790–1860, Jefferson, N.C., cities of the South. Streets came to be in the dark days of racial animosity McFarland, 1985. associated in those cities with black at the dawn of the twentieth century, • Robinson, Harry G. III and Hazel populations, such as Memphis’ Beale the black architect in Washington has Ruth Edwards. The Long Walk: The Street, Jackson’s Farish Street, Chat- practiced in a politically protected Placemaking Legacy of Howard Uni- tanooga’s Ninth Street, Richmond’s location.” versity, Moorland-Spingarn Research Jackson Ward, and above all Atlanta’s Center, 1996. Auburn Avenue, which came to be He adds: known as Sweet Auburn, and contains “The black community, increasingly among other monuments the old and segregated, urbanized, and more new buildings for Ebenezer Baptist aware of the talent of the race, was in Church, where Reverends Martin need of skilled men who could design Luther King Sr. was pastor and Martin churches, fraternal organization build- VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

DIVERSITY The Trailblazers: Six Profiles

by Stephen A. Kliment, FAIA Lankford showed up in Washington man, who eventually founded his own Contributing Editor to great fanfare. Ethridge writes that office. along with “a large front page pic- Following are profiles of six eminent ture of the architect, [the Washington Meanwhile, Lankford thrived. By the trailblazers who thrived in this environ- Bee’s] readers were told that he had 1920s he had won a national reputa- ment. made drawings for the new John Wes- tion, with commissions in 15 states ley A.M.E. Church, and that his draw- and the District of Columbia. John A. Lankford (1876–1946) ings for the True Reformers Building Lankford arrived in Washington in had been ‘submitted to the Engineers His local reputation also bloomed. 1902, followed three years later by Department of the District Govern- “He became in 1925 the first black William S. Pittman (see below). Born ment and have been fully approved.’” registered architect in the District of in 1874 in Potosi, Mo., Lankford came The Bee ended up with the following Columbia after registration became a to town with the commissions to panegyric: requirement in 1924.” Like Pittman, he design the True Reformers Building married well: his wife was the grand- and the John Wesley A.M.E. Church. Lankford became in 1925 daughter of A.M.E Bishop Henry M. He had started an office in Jackson- Turner. ville, Fla. His training was typical of the first black registered the handful of black architects of that architect in the District of In a self-confident, upbeat speech, era, combining design and practical Columbia after registra- Lankford told an audience: construction knowledge. Lankford had spent six years at the Lincoln Insti- tion became a require- tute in Potosi, Mo., where he studied ment in 1924 “mechanical drawing, blacksmithing, carpentry, and engineering,” accord- “The Nation’s capital will see one of ing to the Washington Bee, Washing- the finest structures ever designed by ton’s principal black newspaper of man, notwithstanding the charge that the day. He then moved to Tuskegee, the Negro cannot grasp science … Ala., the college founded by Booker the scientific history of the world will T. Washington, which emerged as the never be complete if it fails to contain fountainhead of solid practical training Professor John A. Lankford, M.S., to for black professionals and crafts. whom the nation’s capital is intro- duced.”

Lankford did well in Washington. He was the nation’s first black practicing architect. Aside from churches and fraternal work, his practice included dwellings and small commercial jobs,

and much remodeling. For a short D.C., by John Lankford. Reformers Building, Washington, True span he also went into real estate in “The Negro architects and builders a small way, but eventually teamed are doing well in Washington; in fact, up with his brother A. E. Lankford, a it is said that there has never been mechanical and electrical engineer so many Negroes at work for the city and, for a period, with the redoubtable and the government as now, and we

John A. Lankford talented and abrasive William Pitt- could today put 500 more to work and VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

have places to spare. The field is so from Tuskegee with a certificate in ar- Stimson told those present, accord- very great with very little discrimina- chitecture in 1900, obtaining a degree ing to that day’s Washington Bee, tion, and we should grasp this great in architecture from Drexel Institute in in remarks that by any standard are opportunity. In the past three years I Philadelphia, returning to Tuskegee grossly patronizing: have designed for Washington and 15 to teach, finally moving north to join states of the Union nearly $6 mil- Lankford’s office in Washington, D.C. “[I wish] to congratulate you first on lion worth of buildings [a vast sum, in what you have done towards the erec- those days]. I have designed, over- In Boyd’s Directory of the District of tion of this building—what has been hauled, and built in Washington and Columbia, 1906, Pittman marketed done by the colored people of this city vicinity over $700 thousand worth of himself as an architect who spe- and this land. I want to congratulate property during the same time.” cialized in steel construction and you on the fact that this magnificent later prided himself on his ability to building, which I have just inspected, His practice declined with the Depres- do drafting , detailing, tracing, and is the work of a colored architect, Mr. sion, and he ended up working for the blueprinting, further claiming he could Pittman. I want to congratulate you on Public Works Administration. He died render in monotone, water color, and the fact that it has been substantially in 1946. Wrote Ethridge: pen and ink, according to the July built by the labor of your own race and 1910 Washington Bee. your own hands.” “[His] significance was his ability to succeed as a black architect in a A year after launching his own Black citizens put up about a quarter world that offered few encourage- practice, Pittman married Portia, the of the $100,000 cost. The rest came ments. A man of great energy, he used daughter of Booker T. Washington, from John D. Rockefeller, Julius Ros- racial solidarity advanced by Booker T. and his father-in-law’s connections enwald, and the Central Association of Washington’s philosophy of self-help (he was also president of Tuskegee the District of Columbia. … Lankford’s churches and frater- Institute), did him no harm. Presi- nal buildings deserve recognition as dent Theodore Roosevelt, who knew Pittman also dabbled in real estate, monuments to the stamina, faith, and Washington, gave the couple a set including an ambitious venture to self-reliance of the black community in of silverware, and shortly afterwards erect an eight-story mixed use bulking a particularly difficult era.” Pittman got to design a home—a to contain a 2,500-seat theater, and William S. Pittman (1875–1958) neat two-story house with a generous aimed at a black customer base, but Pittman left Lankford’s office to hang porch in Fairmount Heights, Md. the venture failed amid charges that out his shingle in 1906, at the age of funds had been mishandled. Mean- 31. As a boy he had worked with his Pittman’s best known while, Pittman’s Washington practice uncle, a seasoned carpenter, then fol- grew, but to what extent it was hard to lowed what had become a traditional building was the YMCA tell because, after the notoriety of the route for black architects, graduating Building on 12th Street in 12th Street YMCA Building, the bulk Washington, D.C. Presi- of his Washington work was small scale—houses, stores, and schools. dent Roosevelt had laid the cornerstone. The But outside Washington, his work dedication in May 1912 flourished, and none drew greater attention than his design for the Negro was a celebrated event Exposition Building at the tercentenary celebration of the landing at James- His best known building was the town in 1607. Pittman won a competi- YMCA Building on 12th Street. tion, and was cited as the first black Roosevelt had laid the cornerstone. man to win an architectural commis- The dedication in May 1912 was a sion from the federal government. The celebrated event, and attracted as the building, in traditional neo-Georgian main speaker Secretary for War Henry style, was built by two black contrac- L. Stimson, who would occupy the tors, S. H. Bolling and A.J.Everett, and

YMCA Building, Washington, D.C., by William Pittman. YMCA Building, Washington, same post under another Roosevelt. cost $30,000. VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

Pittman also designed churches and the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- fraternal buildings in Alabama, Texas, nology (class of 1892). The same year North Carolina, and Georgia, where he joined the Tuskegee Institute. There he allegedly out-promoted all other he headed the mechanical industries competitors, black and white, for the department, which included archi- commission to design the Odd Fel- tecture and construction. The main lows auditorium. buildings at Tuskegee were built under his direction: “students learned every Pittman in due course moved his of- phase of architecture, from drafting to fice to Dallas, where he died in 1958. making bricks.” (Taylor was also in private practice, with a clientele through- Ethridge thus sums up these two out the South. He eventually became careers: “it was the two Washington the first licensed black architect in architects’ application of the theme of Alabama—in 1931, the first year that racial self-help that made their careers licensure was required by that state.) so representative of the era. Neverthe- less, it must be remembered that the Lankford, Pittman, and many other White Hall, Tuskegee University, by Robert Taylor. University, White Hall, Tuskegee almost total dependence on com- black designers and builders studied missions generated within the black under Taylor at Tuskegee. The curricu- In the event, students built 36 out community was a result of attitudes lum there, which came to be known as of 40 buildings, large and small, on and limitations imposed by the domi- the “Tuskegee Machine,” was rooted the Tuskegee campus. Moreover, nant society.” [A black architect was in the teachings of Booker T. Washing- “hundreds of men are now scattered not admitted to the AIA until 1926, 69 ton. The core of Washington’s dream throughout the South who received years after its founding in New York appears in his classical work Up from their knowledge of mechanics while City. His name was Paul Williams (see Slavery, above all in chapter X, entitled being taught how to erect these below).] “Racially generated com- “A Harder Task Than Making Bricks buildings.” In short, it was through missions continued to be a salient Without Straw”: the Tuskegee Machine, buttressed by characteristic of the careers of black Washington, that “the first black ar- architects until well after World War II.” “From the very beginning, at Tuske- chitects obtained education, national gee, I was determined to have the stu- experience, and the beginnings of Robert R. Taylor (1867–1949) dents do not only the agricultural and practice. The Black churches, Prince Taylor was the first African American domestic work, but to have them erect Hall lodges and other Black institu- to receive an architectural degree from their own buildings … My plan was tions provided these architects with not to teach them to work in the old their primary contracts,” wrote Dozier way but to show them how to make in his article, “Black Architects and the forces of nature—air, water, steam, Craftsmen” in the May 1974 Black electricity, horse-power—assist them World. in their labour.” The Tuskegee precedent was in due The main buildings at course emulated at what is now Hampton University and Howard Tuskegee Institute were University, where an inspired leader of built under Robert Tay- a later generation, Howard H. Mackey lor’s direction: “Students (1901-1987), across a 50-year span as dean of the school of architecture learned every phase of and planning, maintained a creative architecture, from draft- and hospitable milieu for generations ing to making bricks.” of future black architects. He was succeeded by Harry G. Robinson III, who later became a top administrator Robert Taylor at Howard. VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

Julian Abele (1881–1950) um of Art, and Harvard’s provided by William E. King, Duke Although more and more African Widener Library was one University archivist from 1972 to 2002, Americans passed professional of the most brilliant yet quotes Abele: “The shadows are all training in architecture and became mine.” By that he allegedly meant, licensed, credit and recognition failed one of the least fêted of said King, that he accepted a central to keep up. The leading example is these early black practi- fact of his life—being black, he lived Julian Abele, designer for the Duke tioners. in the shadows because the social University campus, Philadelphia’s Mu- circumstances of the day denied him seum of Art, and Harvard’s Widener the fame due his talents. Library—a true trailblazer. Trumbauer had a solid practice of well-to-do clients for whom he An odd combination of bias and op- designed mansions, museums, position links Trumbauer with Abele academic buildings, and libraries in and a third member of the firm, Wil- neo-Classical or neo-Gothic. Abele liam Frank, who headed the firm’s took to those historic styles like a technical/specifications department. duck to water and was soon designing In If Gargoyles Could Talk, Sketches of buildings of the highest profile. These Duke University, William King writes: included Widener Library in Harvard “Because of his talent and aloofness, Yard, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Trumbauer gained accolades in New a New York mansion for James B. York before he did in his home town. Duke, and the original master plan and His colleagues in Philadelphia did buildings for Duke University. not elect him to membership in their chapter of the American Institute of But, although Abele was designer for Architects until 1931, an affront that these monuments, the credits went reportedly greatly disturbed him. to Trumbauer, who of course had his Added to this mix was the fact that he name on the door. An excerpt from employed and befriended one of the the Duke University archives kindly very few African American architects Julian Abele, photo courtesy Duke University Archives

Abele was one of the most brilliant yet one of the least fêted of these early black practitioners. He was the first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania school of architecture, and he later attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The man who underwrote his Paris trip was also the man who gave him the unique break to design some of the nation’s best known architecture. Horace Trumbau- er’s practice was based in Philadel- phia. Abele joined the firm in 1906, and in 1909, at the aged 28, Trumbau- er appointed him chief designer.

Julian Abele, designer for the Duke University campus, Philadelphia’s Muse- Duke University Campus and Tower, by Julian Abele, photo courtesy Duke University Archives. Duke University Campus and Tower, VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA in the country. [So] Trumbauer and Alice Phillips entitled Spire and Spirit building is experienced, a surprising Abele each faced discrimination and included a short chapter, “Le Noir,” view in one so wedded to the mantra because of that Trumbauer empa- that describes a meeting with Abele’s of formal composition,” as J. Max thized with the racial discrimination secretary and son when they came to Bond Jr., a partner at Davis Brody confronting Abele.” see the chapel. Bond, wrote in the summer 1997 Har- vard Design Magazine. “Consequently,” King goes on, “they Abele applied for membership in the forged a close relationship based on Philadelphia Chapter AIA in 1942, and As for a sign of black origins, none ap- respect for talent and friendship, but the endorsement letter from Fiske pears. Wrote Bond: “Neither in form, each also trapped the other in a pecu- Kimball, the eminent architectural reference, detail, nor decoration do liar set of circumstances.” Trumbauer historian and at that time director his buildings betray that the man who was the salesman who brought in of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, designed them was black.” But in that the work. Abele was the brilliant chef is evidence of the high esteem in he is a precursor of many of today’s d’atelier and designer. Frank, who which he was held. Abele was also an black-owned mainstream firms, which was Jewish, was the technical man, outstanding draftsman, renderer, and despite the preponderance, in many of making sure the architecture went out water colorist (see crayon rendering of them, of black designers, managers, and up safe and sound. Appointing Duke chapel). and technical people, the work fol- two such men to top positions in his lows the European-derived Modernist firm further underscores Trumbauer’s The height of Abele’s involvement as idiom, as amended from time to time enlightened, for that day, outlook. an architect covered 1906 to 1950, by such passing blips as Postmodern- hyperactive years in the evolution ism and Deconstructionism. Trumbauer, furthermore, had no formal of architectural styles, including Art education from the age of 16 on, had Nouveau, International Modernism, Art Ironically, Abele, who deeply resented learned what he knew about archi- Deco, Constructivism, and Wright’s or- segregation, never went to see the tecture through the apprentice route, ganic Prairie Style. These had tempted buildings he had designed for Duke. and admired formal training in others. hitherto mainstream architects to stray Abele’s education at the University of from the beaten path of gargoyles Paul R. Williams (1894–1980) Pennsylvania and the Beaux Arts fit and the Five Orders. How did Abele Williams was a contemporary of the bill exactly, King argues. respond to these sirens? The answer: Abele’s, but longer-lived, and certainly hardly at all. Trumbauer’s clients, well- far more famous. He is best known for The partners who took over the to-do and conservative in their tastes, the large mansions he designed for Trumbauer firm after Abele’s death in were not ready for the most part to film stars and other Hollywood celebri- 1950 destroyed the firm’s records, and accept the revolutionary look of an ar- ties such as Frank Sinatra, Tyrone with it any hope of an in-depth inven- chitecture without ornament, machine Power, Lucille Ball, Cary Grant, and tory of his contributions. We know made (or pretending to be machine Lon Chaney. that after Trumbauer’s death in 1938, made), and carrying a hidden agenda the firm continued until 1958 under of egalitarianism. Trumbauer’s name. Drawings had been going out under the Trumbauer Moreover, as an educated black man name through the 1930s, and Abele’s of that era, Abele no doubt wished to name began to appear thereafter, King conform to the Euro-centric cultural reports, calling it “an obvious change and social norms then prevailing in of policy.” And when in 1940 the ques- America, which did not get around tion of design of a tomb monument in to wholeheartedly embracing new the crypt of the Duke Chapel arose, architectural trends until the start of the university turned to Abele because the 1950s. he “prepared the plans and knows the details better than anyone else.” In the end, one is hard put to find any traces of Modernism in Abele’s work, Abele’s profile rose after his death, es- except, perhaps, in his “belief that the

pecially after 1974, when a memoir by plan of a building determines how that Paul R. Williams VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

What is less well known is the steep copied the addresses of all the archi- opened his own office in 1922, aged ladder he had to climb to reach that tects listed. I arranged them in geo- 28. In 1923 he became the first black fame. Much of it is told in The Will and graphical order, and called on each member of the Southern California AIA the Way, a reminiscence by Williams’ office. I asked if they were hiring or chapter. granddaughter Karen E. Hudson. not. Next to each name I wrote down if the answer was ‘no’ or ‘maybe next Just as Julian Abele designed the week,’ and whether it was said with a campus for a university in which he smile or a frown. The following week I would not have been allowed to enroll, put my sketches in a smart portfolio, so Williams designed palatial houses and went back to each office where for clients in places where he was someone had ‘smiled.’” not welcome. Born in Los Angeles (his parents were from Memphis and Finally, he was offered three positions, orphaned at age four), he was raised his race notwithstanding. Two offered L.A. Airport, by Paul Williams. by foster parents (his foster father was three dollars a week, the third one a janitor) but went to an integrated nothing. He took the last, because His practice grew as the newly rich high school. On learning, wrongly, that it was one of the most prestigious film magnates and stars looked for there was reportedly only one black offices in Los Angeles, and he figured ways to spend their money, and their architect in practice, William Pittman, he would “pay” for learning (shortly first thought was usually a suitable Williams wrote in his diary, as edited thereafter, they began to pay him three house. Williams, with his engaging by Karen Hudson: “I was sure this dollars a week). manner, eye for materials and form, country could use at least one or two and rapid production, caught the eye more black architects.” On confiding What at first propelled Williams of Lon Chaney Sr. and a small handful this ambition to his high school coun- forward was his remarkable drafts- of other celebrities, and, as the word selor, he was told: “Who ever heard of manship—he discovered he could be got around, the work began to flow a Negro being an architect? faster and more efficient and accurate into the office. than others, and did so because, he Paul Williams is best wrote in his diary, he wanted to be Yet Williams’ path to success was “judged for my abilities rather than anything but trouble free. In an Ebony known for the large man- simply dismissed because of the color profile published in March 1994, a sions he designed for of my face.” dozen years after his death, reporter film stars and other Hol- Karima Haynes wrote: “Racism was But he soon discovered there was pervasive in the business climate in lywood celebrities such more to architecture then drafting. which he worked. White clients loved as Frank Sinatra, Tyrone So he went back to school at the his work, yet felt uncomfortable shak- Power, Lucille Ball, Cary University of Southern California and ing his hand. His elaborate homes studied engineering and business. were built in some of Los Angeles’ Grant, and Lon Chaney. He supported himself by making most exclusive neighborhoods, yet brass fittings for men’s watch fobs segregation barred him from living He made the commitment anyway, at and women’s handbags. He made so there. He never would eat lunch with a the age of 18, and on graduating from much money at this that he consid- White woman alone, even if she hap- Polytechnic High School he attended ered going into business. pened to be a client.” In a wistful entry the Los Angeles Art School and the in his diary, Williams remarked: Los Angeles branch of the Beaux-Arts Eventually, he went to work for the Institute of Design of New York. Five then-prominent Los Angeles firm of “As I sketched plans for large country years later he won the coveted Beaux Reginald Johnson and, as his first homes in the most beautiful places Arts Medal for excellence in design. assignment, was given a $150,000 in the world, sometimes I dreamed of Here’s how he went about finding his house to design (a $2,250,000 house living there. I could afford such a home, first job: by today’s prices). A high school but each evening, I returned to my small friend asked him to design his house, home in a restricted area of Los Angeles “I went through the yellow pages and and, with the fee so earned, Williams where Negroes were allowed to live.” VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

While Abele was committed to a clas- for the theme building at Los Angeles a maintenance facility, and seven sical idiom, Williams embraced the International Airport (in association traction power substations. He de- freer milieu of Hollywood. He too, be it with Pereira & Luckman and Welton signed health-care facilities and many said, conformed to whatever the client Becket & Associates), a new wing for schools, including the modernization wanted—Art Deco, neo-Gothic etc. the Beverly Hills Hotel, and numerous of 18 school buildings for the Chicago One finds in Williams’ work what Max churches. By 1950 the Williams office Board of Education. Bond calls “less about stylistic con- had a staff of over 50. sistency than about direct response John Moutoussamy is to the aspirations of his clients, to That said, there is little evidence, socioeconomic developments in certainly not in his diary, that Wil- known above all as the Southern California in the first half of liams’ race played any major role in black architect who de- the century, and to Southern Califor- securing him commissions, no matter signed a high-profile nians’ self-conscious understandings what impact it had on his social life of style and urbanity.” Indeed, Bond and his social contacts with clients downtown Chicago head- likens Williams to Morris Lapidus in his and their entourage. His concern quarters office building, ability to “concoct stylish pastiches,” for the well-being of fellow blacks is with an African American but argues that Williams’ houses were manifest in the designs he did for Los much like the man himself—“affable, Angeles’ black community, includ- as client. well-mannered, gracious and grace- ing low-cost houses, a church, an ful.” Bond should know, because he elementary school, several YMCAs, Born in Chicago in 1922 of parents and another Eastern architect, Jeh and a children’s hospital in Memphis, born in Guadeloupe—his mother was Johnson, had driven from New York for which he waived his fee. Creole and spoke next to no English. to Los Angeles in 1957 to take up a How Motoussamy, with these roots, summer job in Williams’ office—a job John Moutoussamy (1922–1995) ended up as a prominent architect is they had obtained, as Bond put it, “on The most contemporary of the lat- a tale of timing and perseverance. His the strength of letters from school.” ter-day pioneers is Chicago-born mother had worked for an architect They were put to work on the Sinatra architect John Moutoussamy. He is as a maid and regaled her son with house—Bond to detail the kitchen known above all as the black architect glowing reports about the architect’s floor tile, Johnson the stair railings. who designed a high-profile down- personality and lifestyle. Then, faced town Chicago headquarters office with the all too common admoni- His house for Sinatra was ahead of building, with an African American as tion to black youths that architecture its time from a technical viewpoint, client. This was a feat unprecedented was not the career for them, it only incorporating all kinds of electronic even as late as 1971, when his client, hardened his resolve. An admirer of devices for controlling blinds, music, Johnson Publishing Company chief Mies van der Rohe, Moutoussamy and security. executive John Johnson, moved into elected to study at the Illinois Institute his new building on South Michigan of Technology, whose architecture But Williams never lost the common Avenue. department was then headed by Mies. touch. In 1945, members of the armed John’s daughter Jeanne Moutoussa- forces returned from the war, married, Earlier, Moutoussamy had designed my-Ashe, widow of Arthur Ashe, told and began to look for affordable homes. the 744-unit Theodore K. Lawless me that John White, later president of Williams wrote two books on small Gardens, named after a prosperous Cooper Union, had been responsible homes, The Small Home of Tomorrow black dermatologist and philanthro- in 1948 for getting her father into IIT and New Homes for Today. These two pist, a model project that won several under the GI Bill. works were on the lines of the old pat- design awards. tern books—they carried enough infor- At IIT, Moutoussamy was close to mation to give young couples an image Moutoussamy’s work was a lot Mies, who even gave him a drafting of their dream house, and a rough idea broader than these examples would set. His work, then and later, reflected to the builder of plan, elevation, materi- indicate. He was principal partner Mies’ spare design, flat surfaces, and als, and dimensions. on such complex commissions as absence of ornament. He graduated in the Southwest Transit Project, which 1948 with a BS degree in architecture Otherwise, Williams is best known comprised eight rapid transit stations, and was licensed after an unusually VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS NOVEMBER 10, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

short internship two years later. Dubins were Jewish, Black was Anglo Side that had been settled by black Saxon Protestant). families during World War I. His role He soon joined Dubin Dubin and was to design high-rise and low-rise Black, a prominent Chicago office. As a disciple of Mies, Moutoussamy housing. One project was later desig- The partners, who had never known felt that Mies’ spare impersonal design nated as the Dr Theodore K. Lawless Moutoussamy as anything more vocabulary worked anywhere. He also Gardens. than a name, came to recognize him thought it presumptuous to expect as an extraordinary employee who successful black entrepreneurs or But the critical event in his life was was now also billing as much as 25 other well-to-do blacks to hire black design of the Johnson Publishing percent of the firm’s total revenues. architects merely because of their headquarters. Arthur Dubin relates They explored the idea of a full and race. “You can’t put that burden on the tricky circumstances of getting a equal partnership in the firm. They a Black guy who happens to be suc- loan and approval for the building. The also reviewed the idea with their cessful,” he told Ebony Magazine in a mortgage company had suggested clients, who welcomed it. So, in 1966, July 1983 article. “I think he ought to that Moutoussamy ally himself with Moutoussamy became a partner in use the architect that serves his needs an experienced architecture firm. He the firm, which changed its name to best.” [Black and majority patronage was given a list of four all-white firms. Dubin Dubin Black and Moutoussamy will be discussed as a key issue in this Three of them would have placed (DDBM). column in mid-2007.] Moutoussamy’s John in a routine position with little partner Peter Dubin once said: “[John] impact. The fourth firm, Dubin Dubin was always amused with the question and Black, offered him his own space [about his role in shaping an African in the office, drafting and other sup- American influence in architecture] … port he would need to get the work He believed in the theory of one archi- out, and a separate checking account. tecture for all people, rich and poor,” The lion’s share in breaking down according to a Chicago newspaper the financial and racial barriers go to obituary in May 1995. publisher John Johnson, who used persistence, contacts, guile, and sheer By the time Moutoussamy had died, pluck to obtain the necessary permits DDBM had become broadly diversi- and loans to proceed with the job. fied racially, to the extent that it was But Moutoussamy was an essential rated as a 51 percent minority firm for weapon in Johnson’s arsenal. government set-aside purposes. The firm did not survive his death, despite Appraisal efforts by partner Arthur Dubin, who, Did Abele, Williams, and the other with three other architects, ended up trailblazer architects inspire later forming a new firm. generations of black architects? The circumstances of founding and developing Moutoussamy shared many of the a practice are different today, in many personal qualities of another pioneer, ways, though uncomfortably similar in

Johnson Publishing Headquarters, by John Moutoussamy Paul Williams. He was gracious and others. The numbers of black architects DDBM had long embraced minorities courteous. The order of worship of the employed in or owning a practice have in its hiring and promotion prac- funeral mass in 1995 describes him multiplied manifold since the gallant tices. Henry Dubin, Arthur’s father, as a “kind, compassionate, gentle and days of the trailblazers, who showed and George, his uncle, who together loving man … quiet spoken, always that even under the most severe restric- founded the firm in 1914, had em- eager to listen, and had a humor all tions, black architects had the skills, ployed minority staff long before this his own.” initiative, and perseverance to produce became commonplace. Several of the work of professional quality. firm’s junior partners in recent years He got his start under urban renewal. came from racial and religious minori- His first jobs as head of his own firm ties, and the firm went out of its way consisted of working on the redevel- to hire minorities out of school (the opment of an area on Chicago’s South VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS DECEMBER 22, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA Three Contemporary Star Architects

by Stephen A. Kliment, FAIA design firms and, without many of the level of documentation necessary to constraints on budgets and innovation “win” the job or have out-of-the-box Summary: Here, in the third of AIArchi- of the typical public client, give their thinking accepted calls for levels of tect’s Diversity series, are the stories architects a freer hand in stretching the documentation not required of even of three African-American architects design envelope. less experienced majority firms. And who founded, own, and lead profitable the money for high-quality photogra- firms, despite severe hurdles on the phy or for making sensational models road to success. And each is produc- is seldom there, as it is for white firms ing high octane design. with huge presentation budgets. Lee doubts a majority firm would have to • David Lee, FAIA, of Stull and Lee undergo such rigorous checks. He Architects, based in Boston, tells of remembers in earlier years how frus- the special effort his firm has had to trated he and partner Donald L. Stull, put out to be seen as of the same FAIA, were when they would show caliber as majority competitors. a past project to a client prospect,

• Michael Willis, FAIA, of San Francis- David M. Lee, FAIA only to have the client ask: “OK, now co-based Michael Willis Architects, what part of that project did you do?” had the brilliant idea to come upon a Poorer communities generally rely He would respond: “No, we were the building type that had hitherto been on public sources for funding. “Often architects of record. The whole thing seen strictly as engineering—and the agencies that underwrite these was ours.” made architecture out of it. projects impose design requirements • Philip Freelon, FAIA, of The Freelon that are inflexible and not suited to Lee concedes that with his track Group, at Research Triangle Park, reinterpretation to fit a particular record he often gets an easy bye in the N.C., has developed a solid institu- ethnic culture,” argues Lee. “The HUD first round of selection. Having served tional practice. He, like Lee and Wil- requirements we often worked within as president of the Boston Society lis, has received an enviable string did not vary whether one was building of Architects, taught at the Harvard of AIA honor awards that testifies to on a Hopi reservation or in Harlem.” Graduate School of Design, and, the design quality of their work. [Source: 1996 speech to Tulane Jazz along with Stull, having judged a host Architectural Workshop. For insights of design award programs—all this into patrons, patronage, and the black has raised the firm’s profile and made M. David Lee, FAIA, co- architect, look forward to Episode 13 things a little easier. founder, Stull and Lee in this diversity series, scheduled for Architects, Boston mid-2007]. But not all the way down the line, David Lee, one of the most original of and not all the time. He has run into today’s black designers, has found, as On private-sector work and typically serious obstacles when working for he goes about seeking new business on public work, too, black-owned firms established public clients. Many firms for the firm, how exposed he is to the have to prove themselves every time. cannot afford to. They must work for trials of owning and running a black They have to be more than simply a limited fee and small margins and firm in our time. He looks with long- “qualified.” Their previous projects are put up with micro-management from ing, but without resentment, at the never just evidence they can handle lifer departmental bureaucrats. So cutting-edge design breaks afforded the next one. This holds even for firms firms like his end up spending undue majority firms thanks to the power, with the solid reputation of Stull and labor hours simply to move a project independence, and big budgets of Lee. In their portfolio, they can point forward. their patrons. He has found that most to many award-winning buildings and private clients still gravitate to majority urban design projects. But often the A disproportionate share of Stull and VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS DECEMBER 22, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

Lee’s workload is still public sector. budgets hurt opportunities to sell in- Robert Wesley at Skidmore Owings For example he has done work for the novative designs. Recalls Lee: “Cesar and Merrill in Chicago; Ralph Jackson “T”—the Massachusetts Bay Trans- Pelli is a person I’ve known and served at Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and portation Authority—and designed on juries with. A warm and wonder- Abbott; Max Bond at Davis Brody the Boston police department head- ful person and an extremely talented Bond; and Darrel Fitzgerald at Gensler, quarters. Their share of private work is architect. One time, I was scheduled in Atlanta). Max Bond tells friends that improving, but even then it is primarily to go before the Boston Civic Design the way clients relate to him now is focused in minority neighborhoods. Commission the same night as he. entirely different from the way they did As for what Lee calls a “straight job,” His project was a tower over South when he was partner in his own minor- downtown or on the waterfront, it Station. Cesar did a wonderful job pre- ity firm, Bond Ryder and Associates. is has proved elusive. An important senting it. But he had all these models As a principal in a majority-owned firm, exception has been the firm’s work for that had been built with basswood he plays a different ball game: he is Northeastern University in Boston. Lee and lighting and all kinds of gadgets to accepted naturally as a mainstream has been leading the institution’s new show the commission what this lobby player by client and competitors alike. master plan and has completed two and other spaces was going to be recent buildings on campus. about. They had two or three of them. Beautiful things, well done. And Cesar To change it will take political leader- kept referring to them as, ‘well, these ship. In Atlanta, leaders made a differ- are just little sketch models.’ And I’m ence. The late Mayor Maynard Jack- sitting there, thinking, ‘God, I’d be son and former congressman Andrew happy to have a budget that would Young each told people: “If you’re go- allow me to build those just as the final ing to work in this town, you’re going model, much less a sketch.’” to be inclusive.” Not many politicians are making those kinds of demands. And although current technology goes Lee told a former mayor of Boston: a long way toward leveling the playing “If you really want to see how we can field in helping clients to envision pos-

get minority professionals—lawyers, sibilities, physical models and (expen- Stull and Lee, John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute at photo courtesy of architect Northeastern University, architects, accountants, whatever—in- sive) hand drawn renderings still rule volved, somebody’s got to say, ‘these the day. Black ownership are people I want you to talk to, and Accepting partnership in a majority give those people a chance.’” Note too the difference between the firm may disappoint black colleagues way clients perceive a black owner/ still in black-owned firms. They may Many black firms have a special con- principal versus a black partner in a see it as a personal triumph but, given cern about the way tight fees and tight majority firm (the latter have included the individual’s obvious talents, they would rather see them remain at the helm of their own black-owned firms, because of the prestige this would bring to black firms all over. They feel the gifted black architect who joins a majority-owned partnership could better have formed a dream team of minority architects—with some majority partners perhaps, but essentially a minority firm—that would rank with the best of the majority firms and sustain itself over time.

How close they are to realizing that destiny is best described in Lee’s words: “Are we where, perhaps, we Stull and Lee, Orchard Gardens School, photo courtesy of architect Gardens Stull and Lee, Orchard VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS DECEMBER 22, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

should be, given our track record? I’m the victims and survivors of Katrina. wanted to own and run a successful not certain that we are. If you really firm. His early high school run-ins do look hard, even where we have had After nearly 40 years in practice, the suggest an uncanny replay of what breakthroughs—and some of our firm was established initially as Stull the great black architect Paul Williams clients are majority clients—it has been Associates by Donald Stull in 1966, the encountered 60 years earlier. in those places where there was a firm is gravitating toward a new model. minority angle in some way, shape, or At one point Stull and Lee reached a form.” But work in the majority private staff level of 60 persons, 19 of whom sector is still the exception. were assigned to Boston’s Big Dig Project. Stull and Lee, in a subcon- Recent examples include the award sultant role to PB/Bechtel, was a key winning Orchard Gardens Elementary member of the coordinating architec- School in Boston with TLCR Architects tural and urban design overview team. and the John D. O’Bryant African- American Institute at Northeastern Largely as a matter of choice, the firm University. The O’Bryant African-Amer- has downsized to 15. “We never want ican Institute is a 30,000 square foot to grow larger than 20 persons again. component within a larger mixed use Chasing money and dealing with end- structure that also includes general less human resource issues is not why classrooms and a student dormitory. we chose to become architects. Today Stull and Lee collaborated with William the firm looks to work nationally (and Rawn Associates on the overall mass- locally) in collaborations with other ing and urban design concept. Lee architects or engineers who bring spe- then designed the O’Bryant African- cific knowledge of particular building American Institute as a distinctive types.”

Afro-centric inspired “piece” within the Michael Willis, FAIA overall composition. Michael E. Willis, FAIA, Mi- chael Willis Architects Reports Willis: “I wasn’t particu- Lee also worked in New Orleans plan- Michael Willis Architects, with offices larly outgoing but I loved drawing. My ning with the residents of the Lower in San Francisco and Portland, Ore., mother was a successful commercial Ninth Ward in designing and oversee- has had the kind of success envied artist. My first stumble in the road was ing construction of the monument to by architects of every race who have in my high school. I was talking to my junior counselor who received the news unhappily that I wanted to go to architecture school. She was steering me towards trade school.”

Frustrated by this gloomy prospect, Willis was taken in hand by Gloria White, the senior and only black counselor. “She invited me to her cubicle and said, ‘if you want to go to architecture school, I’ll get you to the door. You’ll have to do the work yourself, but if that’s where you want to go, I’ll get you there.’”

Willis did get to go, to Washington Uni- versity, and found it difficult. But at no time did he feel he was in the wrong

Stull and Lee collaborating with William Rawn Associates, monument to the victims and survivors of Katrina, photo courtesy architect place. He never thought of a serious VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS DECEMBER 22, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA alternative. At the school, there was can influences. “Our design approach dramatic response to this shopworn no “house style” to follow, as at Illinois was just to create a place where the model came from an unexpected Institute of Technology in those years. solutions were—the solutions we came quarter—from Willis’s architecture firm, That left him free to follow his own up with were generated by place and and a black-owned one at that, which path. After graduating, he worked for program and not standard anything.” had never designed a building even Charles Fleming, a large black-owned He was 37. remotely like the one they now sought firm in St. Louis, where he once reject- with uncommon vigor. ed an offer from the principal to go into Fork in the road marketing. He nonetheless became Still, opening an office brought Willis to The Sobrante Ozonation Facility, in El interested in where the jobs came a fork in the road that has confronted Sobrante, Calif., provides conventional from. So Fleming started having him many a black-owned firm before and chlorine and ozone-based waster pu- come along on business development since: most of his workload became, rification. An industrial building, it has trips and do some proposal writing. and remained, public sector work. become the flagship for the district, But he understood that somewhere in He applies his own rationale to this: enticing visitors from the water indus- this room was a job that would allow “Public work is organized, there’s a try and the general public. This was an him to go back and work on it. structure to it. As a publicly-oriented important project for Willis. It was an office we know how to attract the industrial project, designed to purify Not long after, he captured a much attention of the city, the public works water in a major water processing prized job to teach studio at the department, the environmental health plant. He had never done a structure University of California at Berkeley. department. We understand the ap- of this type or scale before. He heard Berkeley changed Willis’ outlook in paratus of public work.” of this project in 1991 and made the other ways. He saw a way of prac- short list. When he got the call he was tice that attracted him. “St. Louis is a He began to focus on a subset of a brand new firm—only four staffers. place of many talented people, but the public works construction that most “I avoided telling them in the interview. structure of work is fairly conservative. people do not associate with archi- They kept asking me, but I kept talking In San Francisco, I was seeing small tects and architecture: water puri- about the incredible challenge of the firms doing what I would call major fication facilities. Typically you call project. If they had heard the number work. I saw small firms, talent driven, in the engineers to make sure the four, they just would have deflated. being able to capture substantive roof doesn’t leak and the equipment work. You didn’t have to be in a big does not fall through the floor. But a “It ended up probably the single best firm for 20 years to get what you would consider real work.”

Willis went back to St. Louis anyway, and after working for some of that city’s best known firms, Charles Flem- ing invited him to open an office in San Francisco. Back in San Francisco, he had to hire people, negotiate for rents, and “talk about the 80 percent of stuff that’s not architecture just to do architecture.” And he found he now had to hand over the part that he loved to others. He could look over the fence, comment, perhaps do a drawing now and then, but his real job was getting the firm known; creating the work.

Finally, in 1988, Willis started his own firm—in San Francisco. His designs

were mainstream, with no visible Afri- photo courtesy of architect The Sobrante Ozonation Facility, Michael Willis Architects, VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS DECEMBER 22, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

interview for the firm because it created a body of work for us. It wasn’t just that job.” The interview taught Wil- lis a lesson—that they were architects, not engineers. “We asked: ‘What do people need? They still need light and air, the workplace needs to work for the people who are in it. So we asked not just the dumb questions about the purification process, we asked some questions about how the entire building works. ‘What do you do all day? What do you in this building and what in that building? And from listening to those answers, we were able to devise an approach for designing a building type we’d never seen before. But the beauty of it was that no one had.”

So Willis started on a novel approach

to designing such structures—not by Mandela Gateway Hope VI, photo courtesy of architect Michael Willis Architects, imposing architectural order on an sit and the technology to survive. projects were a great opportunity for industrial plant, but by understand- African-American architects. “There’s ing the industrial plant and processes But Sobrante had a longer-term return almost no bar to your being involved and making architecture out of that. for Willis. The engineers called and if you understand the technology,” he He now had created not just a nice said “let’s go work on another one.” contends. “And because it’s not glam- job for the firm, but also one that paid So Willis started work on Richmond orous, it narrows the field.” well. The firm had earned the money Water Reclamation Plant. Both proj- it needed to buy computers, office ects, to Willis, had a larger societal Willis’s greatest achievement is that he space, and chairs, so in case of a function. You could now purify water boldly approached industrial architec- downturn, they at least had a place to in ways other than to use the explo- ture and made it a brand of the firm. sive chlorine gas and chlorine liquids, His blackness is a non-factor. He goes which have to be trucked into these into interviews as an expert. He knows facilities or brought in by train. That is how to make the building work not risk-free ozone, which is also healthier. only for the client’s industrial program Ozone was used at the Sobrante and but for the people who actually work Richmond facilities and third facility there and for the neighborhood. for Metropolitan Water in Los Ange- les, which in 2001 became the largest Social conscience ozone facility anywhere. Willis did not abandon a social conscience as he went up against the So the Willis firm became experts in heavyweights in the Bay Area. “If we the design of water treatment facilities were talking at an interview about the based on a newer, safer, and healthier number of housing units we designed, technology. It led to invitations to compared to one of the more estab- speak at American Water Works As- lished firms in town, we would always sociation conferences, where Willis have come out on the short end.” played evangelist and plugged the evi- Instead, he talks to the public client dently novel idea that architects should about the way people live. What can be a part of water facility design. As you see from the window? How does Willis discovered, these public mega- light and air get into your building? Michael Willis Architects, Jensen Filtration Plant Oxidation Retrofit Program, photo courtesy of architect Program, Jensen Filtration Plant Oxidation Retrofit Michael Willis Architects, VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS DECEMBER 22, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

What’s your relationship with the appreciation of Modern art. Freelon’s outside from your front door? Can you training in the Modern architecture see your front door from the street? tradition began at Hampton, a histori- How does it fit in the neighborhood? cally black university, and continued at “How many units have you designed” North Carolina State University, MIT, becomes irrelevant when judging and the Harvard Graduate School of whether or not he is qualified to do the Design where he was a Loeb Fellow. job. He floods the client with talk about the project’s impact—how it affects the Freelon spent 12 productive years neighborhood, its patch of city. He has honing his skills at majority firms, completed several projects that follow where he excelled. He was named an this philosophy. associate at 3D/International in Hous- ton, where he managed sizable design Willis has also designed added socially commissions in the U.S. and abroad. related projects—including the Cecil From 1982 through 1989, he worked at Williams Glide Community House, a O’Brien/Atkins Associates in Research hardy effort to kindle self-reliance and Triangle Park, N.C., where, at the age optimism among the dispossessed, of 34, he became vice president of and Mandela Gateway Hope VI in FAIA Philip Freelon, architecture and the youngest share- Oakland. ties to a combination of three factors: holder. He oversaw the 50-person his family background, his education, architecture group, which included 25 By fall 2006 Michael Willis Architects and his work experience. Growing up, other architects. employed 43 persons. The racial his parents filled their home in Phila- breakdown was: 25 Caucasians, 7 delphia with modern paintings and It has not all been smooth sailing for Asians, 9 African Americans, and one sculptures. His grandfather, a graduate Freelon, but he has been able to deal Latino. Men outnumbered women by a of the University of Pennsylvania who with the assaults of prejudice and dis- ratio of 29 to 14. Of Willis’ three part- was a well-known painter and active in crimination that have come his way. He ners, Carlton Smith, also the incoming the Harlem renaissance, also fueled his says it’s like rain. He knows it’s there president of NOMA, is African Ameri- can; Rod Henmi is Japanese Ameri- can; and Jeff McGraw is Caucasian.

Philip G. Freelon, FAIA, The Freelon Group While some African-American architects feel that they are straddling the fault line of the racial divide, Philip Freelon, founding partner of The Freelon Group, embraces the notion of working and competing within the mainstream architectural profession. He believes that the vocabulary and palette of contemporary American architecture is rich enough to allow for the appropriate interpretation of most building programs. Freelon chooses to address his clients’ desires for “appropriate” solutions as he applies modern design principles.

Freelon attributes his design sensibili- Institute for North Carolina Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Group, The Freelon photo courtesy of architect Central University, VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS DECEMBER 22, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

but he doesn’t let it sour his attitude. He has been helped in this regard not only by his success in majority architecture design firms, but also because his firm has received 23 AIA design awards at the regional, state, and local levels. Award winning projects his firm has designed include the Chambers Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute for North Carolina Central Uni- versity, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture in Baltimore, the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco, and the Parking Structure at Raleigh Durham International Airport.

Freelon’s work also includes major commissions for corporate clients such as Lord Corporation, an international developer of high-tech prod-

ucts. Lord, a majority privately held at Raleigh Durham International Parking Structure Airport, photo courtesy of architect Group, The Freelon company, hired Freelon to masterplan their 60-acre campus and design their When clients visit his offices in the has been more fortunate than many 51,000-square-foot headquarters Research Triangle Park, they see the African-American architects regarding building, which was an AIA design diversity. He presently has a combined commissions from corporate clients, award winner. staff of 51; 30 percent are people of much of the firm’s work still comes color. Although Freelon concedes he from the public sector, and that trying to do innovative work on a limited budget is a challenge. Tight budgets can place constraints on the ability to do great design, but Freelon has proved adept at designing high quality work geared to the needs of a diverse client base.

In terms of program, many of Freelon’s buildings have no cultural elements. Still, his African roots often peek through. He sees no point in arbitrarily superimposing African images or sym- bols on buildings, yet these influences have made it into his work where appropriate. “My roots are in Africa and the branches and leaves grew in Amer- ica,” he notes. The parking structure at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, for instance, clearly features conical forms used widely in traditional West African architecture.

The Freelon Group, the Museum of African Diaspora, photo courtesy architect Group, The Freelon VOLUME 13 THE NEWS OF AMERICA’S COMMUNITY OF ARCHITECTS DECEMBER 22, 2006 FACE OF THE AIA

Freelon sees an African-American Princeton in a much publicized dis- aesthetic in architecture not as a pute in 2002. patchwork of African and/or European In a dispute over fees, Wichita, archi- design motifs, but rather one built tect Charles McAfee FAIA [verify the F] on the same principles as those that has parted company with the Kansas created jazz. Instruments traditionally African American Museum whose new used for symphonic music, such as the riverfront home he was to design. He saxophone and trumpet, were recon- is replaced by Schaefer Johnson Cox ceived to create a new form of music Frey & Associates, of Wichita [am that expressed freedom and creativity. checking if black owned or with black African-American architects bring a principal]. similar energy to environmental design, he feels, but many lack access to the As an extra spur to local competition, “instruments” or resources to form Moody-Nolan, Inc., one of the nation’s and lead the “band.” He notes that the largest black-owned architecture heralded GSA Design Excellence pro- firms and based in Columbus, Ohio, is gram, which has produced numerous opening an office in Kansas City. award winning buildings funded by the taxpayers, has yet to award a major new construction project to an African- American architect. The private sector presents similar challenges.

Freelon’s vision is to design great buildings that leave a lasting impact on society. He hopes there will be more such opportunities in the years to come. In the meantime, he is sus- tained, he points out, by his passion for the work, the love of his family, his faith in God—and a comfortable line of credit!

Reference: Did You Know… Ground broke this fall for the Pitts- burgh Center for African American Culture, named for Pulitzer Prize winning playwright August Wilson. Architect is Allison Williams [FAIA— confirm], a former partner at SOM and later principal at Ai.

The newly launched Princeton Univer- sity Center for African-American Stud- ies for “understanding the impact of race on the life and institutions of the United States.” is headed by professor Valerie Smith and includes Kwame Anthony Appiah who left Harvard for