Howard University founded its architecture program in 1910, and since then the organization has been both an anchor and a beacon of the African-American architectural community, according to Ethridge. Because of the Shaw Joint Venture, many of D.C.’s minority firms were able to enter the mainstream of the architectural profession.įurthermore, D.C.’s Howard University has graduated a variety of talented architects who went on to make contributions to the city’s landscape. Headed by African-American architects in D.C., the survey assessed the exteriors of nearly 6,000 buildings in Shaw in order to classify each as either sound, deficient, or extremely deficient. According to Ethridge, this was the largest comprehensive building survey ever conducted in the nation. One notable project that proves this is the Shaw Joint Venture of 1968. But this isn’t the full spectrum of work that they achieved. African Americans have impacted the shaping of the nation’s capital.īefore 1968, most contracts given to African-American architects were for additions or renovations to existing structures. Despite this and despite everything, there were still African-American architects who were able to break through and prove to the city-and to the nation-that they were capable in more ways than one. While African Americans played a major role in the construction of the White House, they were left out of the planning and building stages of the McMillan Plan of 1902, a comprehensive planning document for the development of the monumental core and park system of Washington, D.C. Even so, discrimination, a segregated collegiate system, and extremely limited commission opportunities have been enough to hold African Americans back from either pursuing the field or prospering in it. Indeed, the White House was built by the hands of African Americans, both enslaved and free. Right from the beginning, though, African Americans impacted the shape of the nation’s capital. The buildings they designed and constructed serve as visual reminders of the status and aspirations of these architects-as well as how much of a rarity African-American professional architects have been, especially at the turn of the century. had the highest concentration of licensed African-American architects in the U.S. Even so, for many decades, Washington, D.C., has been a center of concentration for African-American architects.Īccording to Harrison Mosley Ethridge, Ph.D., in “The Black Architects of Washington, D.C.,” at one time, D.C. population in 2010, only 2 percent of licensed architects in the U.S. While African Americans made up 13 percent of the total U.S. African Americans are underrepresented in the field of architecture, and the progress made to further diversity in the field has been slow and barely steady.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |