9 Black Modernist Architects And The Landmarks They Designed –

[ad_1] by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors November 12, 2025

Whereas there was progress over time, new Black architects proceed to face challenges coming into the sphere.

Elon Schoenholz // Getty When most individuals think about trendy structure, names like Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Charles and Ray Eames come to thoughts; sometimes, it’s a white man (or, generally, the uncommon white lady). Their designs at the moment are landmarks visited by 1000's, however past this well-established canon lies an entire inhabitants of Black architects who proceed to wrestle for recognition in a area infamous for its lack of range.

Whereas there was progress over time, new Black architects proceed to face challenges coming into the sphere. In 2022, solely 3% of newly licensed architects had been Black, in comparison with 70% who recognized as white, 15% Asian, and 10% Hispanic and Latino, based on the Nationwide Council of Architectural Registration Boards’ 2023 report. The share of Black architects has solely gone up one proportion level since 2018.

The trade has lengthy excluded Black architects in systemic methods with legal guidelines and insurance policies that denied them coaching and training in structure, entry to licensure exams, and membership in skilled organizations.

Even when Black architects overcome these obstacles, they're nonetheless typically neglected.

“Historians are discovering that a lot of them labored in bigger architectural corporations beneath white architects of file and oftentimes, their contributions had been diminished and even ignored,” Joan Weinstein, the director of the Getty Basis, informed Stacker. Weinstein additionally identified that most of the buildings these architects labored on had been in Black communities, which didn’t garner the identical sort of consideration that new constructions in-built upscale white neighborhoods may, for instance.

Researchers haven’t absolutely quantified the continued results of this exclusion, nevertheless it was by no means extra evident than when the Getty Basis realized in 2020 that not one of the 77 grants it had awarded since 2014 to assist protect modernist buildings went to these designed by Black architects.

The establishment partnered with the Nationwide Belief for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Motion Fund on a two-year $3.1 million grant program known as Conserving Black Modernism to raise trendy structure by Black architects and designers. After seven months of deliberations, the nine-member jury selected eight areas in 2023.

“It’s a chance for us to course-correct the way in which we perceive architectural historical past and to heart Black American architects,” Brent Leggs, government director of the Motion Fund, informed Stacker. The Getty and the Motion Fund anticipate to announce the following spherical of Conserving Black Modernism grants in July 2024.

Within the meantime, Stacker is highlighting the 9 Black modernist architects vetted by each establishments and eight examples of revolutionary structure they designed. Identical to the pioneering modernists of Europe post-World Battle I, these Black architects had been in search of methods to construct constructions that would profit the dwelling circumstances of communities utilizing new supplies and engineering strategies like strengthened concrete, open flooring plans, and curtain partitions.

Learn on to study 9 Black modernist architects who ought to be in your radar and the landmarks they constructed.

Nicole Bissey // Getty Charles McAfee: Charles McAfee Swimming Pool and Pool Home Location: Wichita, Kansas

Charles McAfee, born in Los Angeles on Christmas Day in 1932, grew to become one of many first African Individuals to graduate with an structure diploma from the College of Nebraska in 1958. McAfee believed in modernism’s community-focused ethos, and his initiatives replicate this spirit: from a producing plant that would supply 50 full-time jobs to the Wichita swimming pool that bears his identify.

The pool, in-built a traditionally Black neighborhood, was one of many first to supply Black swimmers in Kansas entry to competition-length swimming lanes. It featured double sand-blasted concrete shade constructions that offered shelter from the warmth and concrete gentle towers for these trying to swim at night time. Its modular concrete and brick pool home additionally supplied a minimalist atmosphere for showering and altering garments.

McAfee would go on to win awards from the American Institute of Architects in Kansas and the Federal Housing Administration. He additionally served because the president of the Nationwide Group of Minority Architects.

Elon Schoenholz // Getty Robert Kennard: Carson Metropolis Corridor Constructing Location: Carson, California

After receiving his structure diploma from the College of Southern California beneath the G.I. Invoice, Robert Kennard discovered systemic obstacles blocking his path to work within the area. The sheer quantity of rejection he acquired—with some structure corporations telling him, “We don’t rent coloured individuals”—prompted Kennard to assist open doorways for others who confronted related exclusion.

After establishing his agency, Kennard Design Group, in 1957, he recruited and mentored Black college students in Los Angeles. He additionally fashioned the Minority Structure and Planning Group, which later grew to become the Nationwide Group of Minority Architects. Kennard left his mark on civic structure, designing metro stops in Washington D.C., parking garages on the Los Angeles Worldwide Airport, and the Carson Metropolis Corridor Constructing.

The Carson Metropolis Corridor challenge happened as Carson grew to become an unbiased metropolis in 1968. Carson officers chosen three architects to work on the challenge, and their selections mirrored the town’s range. The architects included American Robert Alexander, Japanese American Frank Sata, who the U.S. detained in Japanese relocation camps throughout World Battle II, and Kennard, who could be the manager architect.

Nautically impressed, the constructing has a three-wing design that kinds a Y. The edges of the construction echo ship home windows with outriggers and metropolis council places of work set atop the ship’s bridge. Its inside additionally incorporates a swish staircase that ascends to a nautilus-shaped atrium.

Elon Schoenholz // Getty Robert Kennard and Arthur Silvers: Watts Taking place Cultural Middle Location: Los Angeles, California

Arthur Silvers was an architect whose work went past design, preventing for justice in housing and employment. As chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality in Los Angeles within the Nineteen Sixties, Silvers organized protests towards companies with unequal practices and took authorized motion towards landlords who refused to hire to Black tenants.

Kennard and Silvers typically labored collectively on initiatives just like the constructing that’s now Thurgood Marshall School on the College of California, San Diego; Temple Akiba in Culver Metropolis, a definite hexagonally formed synagogue; and the Watts Taking place Cultural Middle.

Restrained in its design, the Watts Taking place Cultural Middle has served as a gathering spot for Black artists, musicians, and different creatives who helped reinvigorate the group after the Watts Rebellion in 1965. Easy white partitions and a construction supported by pillars echo the minimalist tenets of modernism, whereas a courtyard serves as a eating space and group area for the Watts Espresso Home, profiting from the area’s usually heat local weather.

Tema Nicole Stauffer // Getty Harvey Gantt: First Baptist Church-West Location: Charlotte, North Carolina

Harvey Gantt is a trailblazer in additional methods than one. Many individuals know him for turning into Charlotte’s first African American mayor in 1983, however he additionally broke obstacles as a pupil of structure 20 years prior.

In 1963, he waged a authorized battle that went all the way in which to the U.S. 4th Circuit Courtroom of Appeals, leading to Gantt turning into the primary African American pupil admitted to Clemson College.

He would later marry the second Black pupil to enroll, Lucinda Brawley. Gantt graduated with honors in 1965 and went on to earn a grasp’s in metropolis planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how. He co-founded Gantt Huberman Architects in 1971 and took on initiatives just like the Charlotte Transportation Middle, Johnson C. Smith College Science Middle, and the First Baptist Church-West.

The church was Gantt’s first spiritual fee, which he started engaged on at 33 years previous. The construction mixed extra conventional parts like heat, purple brick with the clear strains of modernist structure seen in its geometric shapes, descending sanctuary walkway, and extra up to date stained glass home windows.

Tema Nicole Stauffer // Getty Ethel Bailey Furman: Fourth Baptist Church Academic Wing Location: Richmond, Virginia

Ethel Bailey Furman grew to become the primary Black lady architect to observe in Virginia in 1937. Barred from structure faculties, she skilled with a personal tutor in New York to construct her expertise and went on to have a profession that spanned 4 many years. Furman designed about 200 buildings of every type, together with single-family properties, church buildings, accommodations, shops, and two chapels in Liberia, Africa.

Among the many many non secular buildings in her portfolio is the Fourth Baptist Church’s instructional wing, representing her mid-century modernist leanings with its massive glass home windows and streamlined design.

A spouse, mom of three, and lively group member, Furman inspired girls’s pursuits in all fields. She additionally labored together with her father, a contractor, designing and constructing initiatives all through her life. Outdoors of structure, she participated in Black voter registration drives within the Nineteen Sixties, attended seminars held by the NAACP on discriminatory housing practices, and co-founded the East Finish Civic League.

Troy Pumphrey Jr. // Getty Louis Edwin Fry Sr. and Louis Edwin Fry Jr.: Morgan State College’s Jenkins Corridor Location: Baltimore, Maryland

Louis Edwin Fry Sr. is the primary African American to obtain a grasp’s diploma in structure from Harvard College. A founding member of the Nationwide Group of Minority Architects, Fry Sr. mentored a whole bunch of Black college students in structure. He took on many educational roles within the area, together with division chair for structure at Lincoln College in Missouri and Tuskegee College in Alabama, and he joined Howard College’s school within the Nineteen Fifties.

After leaving Howard College, he based the architectural agency Fry and Welch. Now run by Louis Fry III, the agency is without doubt one of the oldest African American architectural corporations nonetheless working on the East Coast. Amongst Fry Sr.’s initiatives had been the Founders Library and Douglass Corridor at Howard College, in addition to Morgan State’s Jenkins Corridor, which he labored on together with his son Louis Edwin Fry Jr.

Fry Jr. adopted in his father’s footsteps. He acquired two undergraduate levels: one from Howard and one other from Harvard College. He then pursued structure on a Fulbright scholarship in Delft, Netherlands, and earned his grasp’s of structure in city design at Harvard, finding out beneath Walter Gropius. Fry Jr. designed for traditionally Black campuses like Tuskegee College and concrete initiatives just like the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station.

The daddy and son’s Jenkins Corridor is a Brutalist constructing that includes a cement-clad façade. Two-by-four home windows punctuate the outside and kind a buttress that creates an overhang to stop the solar’s rays from piercing the lower-level lecture rooms.

Corey Johnson // Getty Nathan Johnson: Second Baptist Church of Detroit’s Training Constructing Location: Detroit, Michigan

Nathan Johnson was impressed to pursue structure by the work of Paul Revere Williams, a Black architect who designed lavish properties for the celebs throughout Hollywood’s Golden Age. However Johnson shortly confronted discrimination when he tried to seek out work at white-dominated corporations. Finally, he started to work in Detroit as a draftsman at White and Griffin, an incubator for Black architects.

In 1956, Johnson opened his observe and have become one among Detroit’s most sought-after architects for Black church buildings, however not with out being compelled to take secondary positions to bigger white corporations.

One among his largest and most well-known designs is the Brutalist training constructing for the Second Baptist Church of Detroit, Michigan’s oldest Black congregation. The minimalist construction, made from brick and concrete, blends properly with the unique church that sits beside it. Its roof, which seems to drift over the constructing, options an open, sheltered backyard.

Tema Nicole Stauffer // Getty Walter Livingston, Jr.: Zion Baptist Church Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Walter Raleigh Livingston Jr. earned his diploma in structure and his grasp’s in city planning from the College of Pennsylvania. Other than his personal observe, he served on the board of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority and was concerned in finishing Independence Mall and constructing housing in West Philadelphia.

Livingston additionally labored on the design of such initiatives as Progress Plaza, the Clef Membership, and the Legal Justice Middle. He was the primary Black architect inducted into the School of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects.

Within the Seventies, Livingston designed the Zion Baptist Church, which options colourful glass panels and an abstracted steeple that mirrors the tower of the tutorial constructing throughout the road. Comprised primarily of brick and glass on the skin, the church feels expansive and light-weight, even inside, because of its clerestory partitions, which permit beneficiant daylight to filter in.