African
Americans have made contributions in every aspect of American life,
including the area of architecture. This week we are highlighting
some amazing African-American architects who have designed many
magnificent structures.
Robert
Robinson Taylor (1868–1942)
As the first
accredited Black architect in the U.S., Robert Robinson Taylor's
design and educational contributions to the profession are
significant.
He
was the first Black student to enroll at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, where he studied architecture. After graduating, he was
recruited to Alabama's Tuskegee
Institute by
its founder and first president, Booker T. Washington, to plan the
construction of new buildings on campus and to develop its
architectural and engineering programs.
He left
Tuskegee for a brief time, but returned in 1902 and stayed on until
his retirement in the 1930s. Taylor ultimately designed some 25
buildings on campus, including a home for Washington and his family.
He also designed buildings not at Tuskegee, including buildings at
Selma University and the Colored Masonic Temple in Birmingham, AL.
McKissack
& McKissack
Founded
in
1905 by Moses McKissack III (1879–1952) and his brother Calvin
Lunsford McKissack (1890–1968) founded
in Nashville, Tennessee, it
is
the first Black-owned architectural firm in the United States and is
the oldest Black-owned architecture and engineering firm in the
country.
The
McKissack brothers had building and design in their blood: Their
grandfather, Moses McKissack, came to America in 1790 as an enslaved
person owned by a prominent contractor, who used him as a builder.
McKissack passed the trade down to his son, who in turn trained his
sons.
The
McKissack brothers became the first Black licensed architects in the
Southeastern U.S. and went on to design many homes, churches,
schools, and other buildings—including the Morris Memorial Building
in Nashville and the 99th Pursuit Squadron Airbase in Tuskegee,
Alabama, which was the largest federal contract at that time ever
given to a Black-owned firm.
Julian Abele
(1881–1950)
After
completing a two-year architectural drawing course at the
Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art (PMSIA), Abele was the
first Black student admitted to the architecture school at the
University of Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1902.
Abele
traveled to Europe after graduation, which greatly influenced his
work over the course of his career. He worked for Philadelphia
architect Horace Trumbauer, where he became chief designer in just
three years with the firm and greatly contributed to the design of
academic and cultural institutions throughout the East Coast, from
Harvard's Widener Memorial Library to the Philadelphia
Museum of Art.
Perhaps his
greatest work was the design of the west campus of Duke University,
including the university chapel, the Allen Administration Building,
and the Duke Indoor Stadium (renamed Cameron Indoor Stadium in 1972).
Duke's main quad was renamed the Abele Quad in 2016.
Beverly
Loraine Greene (1915-1917)
Architect,
engineer, and urban planner Beverly Loraine Greene became the first
black female architect licensed in the United States, in Illinois, in
1942. She started her career in Chicago with the Chicago Housing
Authority, but moved to New York City, as a result of racial
prejudice and a subsequent lack of work. In New York, she worked on
the Stuyvesant Town housing project, which at the time in 1945 barred
African Americans from living in its apartments. Greene went on to
work with some of the most renowned international modernists,
including Edward Durell Stone on the Sarah Lawrence College arts
complex and Marcel Breuer on the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
Norma Merrick Sklarek (1926-2012)
Norma
Merrick Sklarek was the first major African-American woman architect,
a true trailblazer. Her best-known projects, including Terminal One
at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and the Pacific Design
Center, reveal an idiosyncratic sense of line and color. Sklarek once
illuminated the challenges she faced entering the profession, saying:
“The schools had a quota and it was obvious, a quota against women
and a quota against blacks. In architecture, I absolutely had no role
model. I am happy today to be a role model for others that follow.”
To
God be the Glory for these Amazing African-American Architects who
made their marks on the American landscape!
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