DAAA- Introduction

Founders Bradford C. Grant, Professor of Architecture at California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, California and Dennis Alan Mann, Professor of Architecture at The University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio

This directory identifies and highlights licensed African American architects who practice in both the private and public sectors, who teach in higher education, and who work in associated disciplines.

We began the original (first edition) Directory of African American Architects (Nov. 1991) to account for and identify all of the African Americans who were professionally licensed as architects. We suspected at that time that even the estimated numbers that we came across in various publications were greatly exaggerated. This first directory established a baseline with which we could then begin to plot the demographic changes among African American architects. We also used the data collected from the first edition to facilitate our research profiling the roles that African American architects play in education and in practice, including those who are owners of firms; those who are partners in firms; those who are employees in both the public and private sectors; and those who are educators. This second edition of the directory continues our efforts to provide an up-to-date and accurate listing of licensed African American architects.

By now both Whitney M. Young's admonition to architects attending the American Institute of Architect's (AIA) National Convention in Portland, Oregon in 1968, and the Kerner Commission's June of 1968 report on urban unrest have become important historical documents. Both of these documents were cited by Robert Traynham Coles, a noted practicing architect and a past Distinguished Visiting Professor at Carnegie-Mellon University in a Progressive Architecture editorial entitled "An Endangered Species."1 In an editorial reflection on his observations over a twenty-one year period between 1968 and 1989, Coles bemoaned the dismal growth in the number of African American architects. In his editorial Coles quoted Young, who said that architects must share in the responsibility for creating ".... the white noose around the central city," where much of the urban unrest of the late 1960's occurred. He also cited the Kerner Report, which concluded that the nation was rapidly developing into two societies, one black and one white, separate and unequal. These factors as well as the dismantling of federally supported housing programs, the reduction of Federal support for the maintenance and development of physical infrastructures, and the current attack on affirmative action policies inhibit the success of African American architectural practices.

Major reductions in grants, scholarships, and guaranteed loans for underrepresented students led Coles to conclude that the African American architect was an "endangered species." Coles noted that "the number of black architects had grown from about 1000 to about 2000, remaining at about two percent of the total (of all architects),"2 notwithstanding the fact that African Americans represent more than twelve percent of the population. Coles' data was taken from statistics collected by the Department of Labor. The Department of Labor fails to specify whether or not someone who is employed in the field of architecture is licensed to practice architecture. Statistics cited from the Department of Labor only noted those who worked in the field - licensed architects, interns, technicians, and even designer/builders. Coles found it difficult to substantiate that there were 2000 architects in current practice based on his own observations and experiences with African American architects between 1969 and 1989.

The architectural press continues to report weak African American representation in the profession.3 This is true not only for practice, but also for architectural education. The National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) reports that for the 1993-94 academic year, 6.3 percent of students in accredited B. Arch and M. Arch programs were African American. In that same year, only 3.6 percent of the graduates from both of those programs were African American. We have no statistics to tell us how many graduates remain in the profession as interns or continue on to licensure.

African American women enjoy even less representation in practice; we list only eighty four women in the current directory. Recent studies of the role of gender and race in the architectural profession and in architectural education suggest that weak demographic presence has a negative effect on African American architects and other underrepresented architects in the field.4

Conventional architectural history reflects this bias. Historians have not yet incorporated African American contributions to American architecture into their work or into architecture curricula. Most students of architecture have never heard of Joseph Francis Mangin, the principal designer of New York's City Hall; or Benjamin Banneker, who assisted Pierre Charles L'Enfant in the planning of Washington D.C.; or Julian Abele, who designed the Widener Library at Harvard University; or Paul Revere Williams, the architect of numerous Hollywood homes of movie stars.

The African American architectural tradition continues today. The African American architect is actively involved in all levels of professional practice, from the design of high style interiors to the design of large international airports. African American architects are also Senior Partners in majority owned firms, tenured professors in prestigious architectural schools, and hold important administrative posts in governmental agencies. The accomplishments of African American architects in the second half of the 20th Century are significant, and too extensive for the scope of this directory. Moreover, imagine the extent of their contributions if African American architects were fully represented in the profession.