LibGuides: Architecture: SoA Race &amp; Inclusion Resources: Architects

Books

Minoru Yamasaki and the Fragility of Architecture Few figures in the American arts have stories richer in irony than does architect Minoru Yamasaki. While his twin towers of New York's World Trade Center are internationally iconic, few who know the icon recognize its architect's name or know much about his portfolio of more than 200 buildings. One is tempted to call him America's most famous forgotten architect.
Publication Date: 2021
Raising the Roof: Women Architects Who Broke Through the Glass Ceiling This timely book celebrates the inspirational achievements of women architects in every corner of the world.
Call Number: NA1997 .T67 2021
What Kind of Architect Are You? Architecture is commonplace. We inhabit it and use it; it is constantly present; it serves as foreground and background and usually has a story to tell. But apart from its most illustrious makers, we know almost nothing about the people who conceived it: the architects. What Kind of Architect Are You? offers a glimpse into a vast array of professional possibilities and points out meaningful alternatives to the prevailing myth of the "starchitect." It provides those in search of an architect with insights into how we work and helps them to formulate expectations. It challenges practitioners to think introspectively and examine how they fit into the architectural spectrum. And finally, the collection documents the cross-section of cultural and architectural practice across America.
Call Number: NA680 .G745 2021
Architects after Architecture: Alternatives Pathways for Practice In this volume, we meet forty practitioners through profiles, case studies, and interviews who have used their architectural training in new and resourceful ways to tackle the climate crisis, work with refugees, advocate for diversity, start tech companies, become leading museum curators, tackle homelessness, draft public policy, become developers, design videogames, shape public discourse, and much more.
Publication Date: 2020
African American Architects: Embracing Culture and Building Urban Communities Melvin Mitchell believes that the 2016 opening of the NMAAHC signals either a black architect renaissance or the demise of the black architect-practitioner corps in the U.S. by 2040 if not earlier...along with the demise of Black America's cultural, political, and spatial beachheads in America's big cities.He argues in this book that America's perennial housing crisis - most acutely manifested in Black America's accelerating displacement from America's cities - must be countered by a new progressive 21st century movement that re-invents the revolutionary construction-based architecture modus operandi deployed 100 years ago by Booker T. Washington.
Call Number: NA738 .N5 M58 2020
Authorship Authorship critically examines emergent themes in contemporary architecture by revisiting the seemingly defunct notion of design authorship. As we revel in the death of the master architect, how do we come to terms with the shifting role of creativity in architecture's cultural production? In Authorship, a cross-disciplinary group of designers and scholars explores this topic through a myriad of lenses.
Call Number: NA2540 .A98 2019
Women in Architecture Women in Architecture is an essential work of reference.The volumes explore four themes: History and Identity; Extraordinary Practice; Wider Influence, and Employment and Education.
Call Number: NA1997 .W66 2019 (Vols. 1-4)
Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience Race, Work, and Leadership is a rare and important compilation of essays that examines how race matters in people's experience of work and leadership. What does it mean to be black in corporate America today? How are racial dynamics in organizations changing? How do we build inclusive organizations?
Publication Date: 2019
Julian Abele: Architect and the Beaux Arts Julian Abele, Architect and the Beaux Arts uncovers the life of one of the first beaux arts trained African American architects.
Call Number: NA737 .A24 W55 2019
An Odyssey in B-Flat: Rediscovering the Life and Times of Master Architect Robert A. Kennard A 2018 thesis by Jerome A. Robinson about Master Architect Robert A. Kennard who founded his architecture firm, Kennard Design Group (KDG Architecture and Planning), in 1957. Today it is the oldest, continuously owned, Afro-American architectural firm west of the Mississippi River. Kennard designed over seven hundred buildings and structures—including forty homes.
Publication Date: 2018
The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups "Filled with first-hand reporting, fascinating science, compelling real-world stories, and leadership tools that can apply to businesses, schools, sports, families, and any kind of group, The Culture Code will revolutionize how you think about creating and sustaining successful groups."
Publication Date: 2018
Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture Our Voices: Indigeneity and Architecture offers multiple indigenous perspectives on architecture and design theory and practice. Indigenous authors from Aotearoa NZ, Canada, Australia, and the USA explore the making and keeping of places and spaces which are informed by indigenous values and identities.
Call Number: NA2543 .A58 K54 2018
The Earth, the City, and the Hidden Narrative of Race Carl Anthony shares his perspectives as an African-American child in post-World War II Philadelphia; a student and civil rights activist in 1960s Harlem; a traveling student of West African architecture; and an architect, planner, and environmental justice advocate in Berkeley.
Publication Date: 2017
Minoru Yamasaki: Humanist Architecture for a Modernist World In the first book to examine Yamasaki’s life and career, Dale Allen Gyure draws on a wealth of previously unpublished archival material, and nearly 200 images, to contextualize his work against the framework of midcentury modernism and explore his initial successes, his personal struggles—including with racism—and the tension his work ultimately found in the divide between popular and critical taste.
Call Number: NA737 .Y3 G98 2017
Women of Color in STEM: Navigating the Workforce Women of Color in STEM: Navigating the Workforce is an opportunity for making public the life stories of women of color who have persevered in STEM workplace settings. The authors used various critical theories to situate and make visible the lives of women of color in such disciplines and workplace contexts like mathematics, science, engineering, NASA, academia, government agencies, and others.
Publication Date: 2017
Diversity Among Architects: From Margin to Center The collected work of author Craig L. Wilkins, an African American scholar and practitioner, and discusses music, education, urban geography, social justice, community design centers, race-space identity, shared landscape, and many more topics.
Publication Date: 2016
Space Unveiled: Invisible Cultures in the Design Studio Since the early 1800s, African Americans have designed signature buildings; however, in the mainstream marketplace, African American architects, especially women, have remained invisible in architecture history, theory and practice. Traditional architecture design studio education has been based on the historical models of the Beaux-Arts and the Bauhaus, with a split between design and production teaching. As the result of current teaching models, African American architects tend to work on the production or technical side of building rather than in the design studio. It is essential to understand the centrality of culture, gender, space and knowledge in design studios.
Publication Date: 2014
Paul R. Williams: Classic Hollywood Style Among the most celebrated architects of his generation, Williams was also the first African-American member of the American Institute of Architects, and he was deeply involved in the black community in Los Angeles and in African-American affairs nationally.
Call Number: NA737.W527 H847 2012
Structural Inequality: Black Architects in the United States Victoria Kaplan explores the role systemic racism plays in an occupation commonly referred to as the "white gentlemen's profession." Given the shifting demographics of the United States, Kaplan demonstrates that it is incumbent on the profession to act now to create a multicultural field of practitioners who mirror the changing client base.
Call Number: NA738 .N5 K37 2006
African American Architects: Biographical Dictionary, 1865-1945 This book contains 160 biographical, A-Z entries on African-American architects from the era of Emancipation to the end of World War II.
Publication Date: 2004
The Crisis of the African-American Architect Melvin Mitchell poses the question "why haven't black architects developed a Black Architecture that complements modernist black culture that is rooted in world-class blues, jazz, hip-hop music, and other black aesthetic forms?" His provocative thesis, inspired by Harold Cruse's landmark book, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, exposes the roots of an eighty-year-old estrangement between black architects and Black America.
Call Number: NA738 .N5 M57 2001
Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession Designing for Diversity reveals a profession rife with gender and racial discrimination and examines the aspects of architectural practice that hinder or support the full participation of women and persons of color.
Call Number: NA1997 .A56 2001
Paul R. Williams, Architect: A Legacy of Style One of the most important Los Angeles architects, Paul R. Williams' prolific career extended from the 1920s to the 1970s. His vast body of built work stretches across the world from Paris and Colombia to Washington, D.C., New York, and Memphis. However, the Los Angeles area was his personal and professional focus. Overcoming incredible prejudice in an all-white field, Williams became the first African American admitted to the A.I.A and designed over 3,000 projects, including the Jetsons-like theme building at Los Angeles International Airport, Saks Fifth Avenue and W. & J. Sloane's department stores in Beverly Hills, the famous Beverly Hills and Ambassador hotels, and renowned celebrity haunts, such as Chasen's and Perino's restaurants.
Call Number: NA737 .W527 H84 1993

Professional Resources

African American Design Nexus The African American Design Nexus seeks to gather African American designers in the design professions to showcase their craft, explore different geographies of design practice, and inspire change within design institutions to participate in adopting new approaches to elevate black designers. [Harvard University's Frances Loeb Library in collaboration with the Graduate School of Design African American Student Union]
American Indian Council of Architects and Engineers
AIA Pittsburgh Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Statement
Beyond the Built Environment
Black, Indigenous and POC Owned Design Studios
Black Women in Architecture Network
The Directory of African American Architects Maintained as a public service to promote an awareness of who African American architects are and where they are located. [Center for the Study of Practice at the University of Cincinnati]
Minority Architects of Pittsburgh Scholarship (MAPS)
NOMA: National Organization of Minority Architects
NOMA: The Pittsburgh Chapter

Articles

(2021). New Scholarship for Pittsburgh’s Minority Architects. Columns.

(2021). NOMA Leadership Aims to "Educate, Elevate, and Empower Minority Architects" in 2021. Architect.

(2020). Archive of Architect Paul Revere Williams Jointly Acquired by USC and Getty. Getty News & Stories.

Brownell, B. (2020). James Garrett Jr. Lists Actions for Architects, Institutions, and Business Owners to Combat Systemic Racism. Architect, 109(7), 49–52.

Dowdell, K. (2020). Mabel O. Wilson is updating the narrative of American architecture to include Black architects. Metropolis.

Garcia, C. and Frankowski, N. (2020). What About It: Architecture and Social Responsibility. deem journal.

Okamoto, K. (2019). How NOMA Is Helping Architects of Color to Shape Our Future Cities. Metropolis.

Online Resources

200+ Black Creators Black Architects, Landscape Architects, Interior Designers, Historians, Urban Planners, Artists, Furniture, Industrial, and Product Designers, Design Advocates, and Creative Entrepreneurs.
African-American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865-1945 Contains 160 biographical, A-Z entries on African-American architects from the era of Emancipation to the end of World War II. [CMU Only]
Black Reconstruction Collective
Noir Design Parti Noir Design Parti documents the careers and creative works of Detroit's African American architects.
Now What?! Advocacy, Activism & Alliances in American Architecture since 1968 Now What?! is the first exhibition to examine the little-known history of architects and designers working to further the causes of the civil rights, women’s, and LGBTQ movements of the past fifty years.
Paul R. Williams (Los Angeles Conservancy) By any measure, the accomplishments of trailblazing architect Paul Williams are astounding. In a career spanning almost six decades, Williams designed more than 3,000 structures and mastered a range of architectural styles. [from Los Angeles Conservancy, Architect Biographies]
Pioneering Women of American Architecture A collection of profiles of fifty women who have made important contributions to American architecture.
Tu White School of Architecture

Streaming Media

Confronting Bias: Thriving Across Our Differences
In this Linkedin Learning course, Arianna Huffington and Verna Myers discuss the impact of our cultural lens on our daily relations and how to counter bias in our words and actions. [CMU Only]
Master Builders: Featuring African American Architects in the Nation's Capital
A documentary about Washington, D.C.’s numerous buildings designed by pioneering African American Architects. Some of the architects featured in this documentary include: Julian Abele, Calvin T.S. Brent, Eliz Brooks, and Albert I. Cassell. [CMU Only]