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 , 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 at- tention 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 pri- vate 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 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 , 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 cam- pus, 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 ). 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 cir- cumstances 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