Research Project Spotlights African-American Architects from U. of I.
February 9, 2006
Champaign - After Rodney Howlett graduates from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a master’s degree in architecture, he hopes to return to his home base near St. Louis to design churches.
In the meantime, he’s devoted countless hours to collaborating on the design of a Web site aimed at spreading a different brand of good news. The site focuses on the noteworthy, but little known, achievements of the U. of I. School of Architecture’s African-American alumni.
The project recently sprouted offline legs. Through the end of February, a reformatted, interactive version is featured in the historical portion of the exhibit “Architecture: Pyramids to Skyscrapers” at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. The exhibit, curated by architectural historian Dreck Wilson, was organized as part of the museum’s 2006 Black Creativity Program. According to the museum’s Web site, the exhibit was designed to introduce museum-goers to “historical and contemporary African and African American architectural visionaries whose creations define and shape the world we live in today.”
Before taking a course at the U. of I. with architecture professor Kathryn Anthony, author of “Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession” (U. of I. Press, 2001), Howlett said he could name only one African-American architect. Now, he’s familiar with dozens of them and proud to walk in their footsteps.
“I learned that the University of Illinois has trained and raised up more African-American architects than any university in the United States except for the historically black colleges and universities,” he said.
“I hope that after visiting the site people of all cultural backgrounds can name at least five African-American architects from memory,” Howlett said. “That would be a huge accomplishment.”
To date, more than 100 alumni have been identified and documented on the Web site.
read more here: http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/06/0209architects.html
source: http://www.news.uiuc.edu/
Melissa Mitchell, News Editor