Tag: black-architects | ArchDaily

Choreographing Lagos: Dele Adeyemo on Dance, Cosmology, and Spatial Practices

Romullo Baratto — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Having thrown a stone today, Eshu kills a bird of yesterday. The Yoruba proverb tells both a story of reparation and of ancestrality by joyfully bending spacetime conventions and accessing subjects from the past with present actions. The saying offers a poetic entry point to broader West African traditions and to the practice of Scottish-Nigerian artist and architect Dele Adeyemo. Named one of the winners of the ArchDaily 2025 Next Practices Awards, Adeyemo's work brings together ecology, spirituality, dance, and territory, examining how embodied cultural practices can generate alternative spatial possibilities within and against the architecture of racial capitalism.

Lesley Lokko Receives African Cultural Icon Award for Her Contributions to Architectural Education and Discourse

Antonia Piñeiro — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 05:30:00 +0000

Lesley Lokko OBE has been recognized with the African Cultural Icon Award, honoring "leaders in the creative arts who promote African culture and heritage on a global stage." The accolade is one of nine awards presented annually to publicly nominated and industry-recommended figures by a panel of judges from across Africa. Nominees are evaluated based on "impact, innovation, sustainability, and contribution to Africa's growth." Lokko is the Founder and Chair of the African Futures Institute (AFI), headquartered in Accra, Ghana, and Director of the Nomadic African Studio, an annual month-long itinerant teaching program working across the African continent. She has been acknowledged for her transformative contributions to architecture, education, and cultural discourse within and beyond Africa, consistently challenging conventional narratives around African identity, space, and creativity.

Conserving Black Modernism: The Getty Foundation Adds Five U.S. Landmarks to its 2025 Grant Program

Antonia Piñeiro — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 05:30:00 +0000

The Getty Foundation's Conserving Black Modernism initiative was launched in 2022 as a grant program to preserve and ensure the legacy of African American architects within the Modernist movement across the United States. In partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, it supports conservation efforts, training, and educational initiatives to address the historical oversight of significant architectural landmarks and their designers' contribution. For its third funding cycle in 2025, five new buildings will receive critical support, expanding the initiative's reach into new communities with the first projects in Chicago and the Pacific Northwest.

Conserving Black Modernism: An Initiative to Preserve African American Architectural Heritage in the United States

Nour Fakharany — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 05:30:00 +0000

The Getty Foundation's Conserving Black Modernism initiative, launched in 2022, represents a pivotal effort to preserve and celebrate the architectural contributions of African American architects in the Modernist movement. This initiative, a partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, aims to address historical oversight and ensure the legacy of these trailblazing architects is protected for future generations. Over three funding cycles from 2023 to 2025, the program supports conservation planning, professional training, and storytelling to highlight the cultural and architectural significance of these sites.

"I Grew Up Where Architecture Was Designed to Oppress": Wandile Mthiyane on Social Impact and Learning from South Africa

Eric Baldwin — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Design justice is grounded in personal experience and built through everyday actions. Wandile Mthiyane is an architectural designer that embodies this idea, an activist that grew up in Durban, South Africa during the Apartheid. From an early age he was drawn to building and design, a background directly tied to his childhood. He realized he wanted to build a better future by working to undo the architectural effects of institutionalized racial segregation. Today, Wandile has become recognized for creating social impact, including his work to transform his hometown of Durban.

Hidden Figures: The Historic Contributions of Black Architects in the United States

Michael J. Crosbie — Sun, 19 Jun 2022 07:30:00 +0000

This article was originally published on Common Edge.

The Laboratory of the Future: The 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale Announces Title and Theme of its 18th Edition

Christele Harrouk — Tue, 31 May 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Running from May 20th to November 26th, 2023 in the Giardini, at the Arsenale, and at various sites around Venice, the 18th International Architecture Exhibition will be titled: The Laboratory of the Future. Announced today by the President of La Biennale di Venezia, Roberto Cicutto, and the Curator of the exhibition, Lesley Lokko, the theme and title of this edition will consider the African continent as the protagonist of the future. “There is one place on this planet where all these questions of equity, race, hope, and fear converge and coalesce. Africa. At an anthropological level, we are all African. And what happens in Africa happens to us all”, explains Lokko.

“Architecture Is Much More Than Art, and It Is by Far More Than Just Buildings:” in Conversation With Francis Kéré

Jullia Joson — Sat, 26 Mar 2022 07:30:00 +0000

Meet 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, Francis Kéré, Burkina Faso-born black architect, in an interview about his architectural philosophy, with Louisiana Channel. As the official statement of the Pritzker Architecture Prize notes, “Through buildings that demonstrate beauty, modesty, and invention, and by the integrity of his architecture and geste, Kéré gracefully upholds the mission of this Prize”, continually “empowering and transforming communities through the process of architecture.”

Francis Kéré Receives the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize

Christele Harrouk — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 08:59:00 +0000

The 2022 laureate of architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Architecture Prize is Diébédo Francis Kéré, known as Francis Kéré, Burkina Faso-born architect, educator, social activist, receiver of the 2004 Aga Khan Award for Architecture and designer of the 2017 Serpentine Pavilion. Recognized for “empowering and transforming communities through the process of architecture”, Kéré, the first black architect to ever obtain this award, works mostly in areas charged with constraints and adversity, using local materials and building contemporary facilities whose value exceeds the structure itself, serving and stabilizing the future of entire communities.

Breaking Down Barriers: Black History Month 2022

Matthew Maganga — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 07:30:00 +0000

A little less than two years after the onset of a global pandemic, inclusion in the architecture profession is unfortunately still a limited conversation. A 2020 survey by the UK’s Architects' Journal revealed a sobering amount of obstacles for Black architects in the UK, and in the United States, prominent Black practitioners such as Mabel O. Wilson of Studio & have questioned the Eurocentric nature of a large amount of architectural study.

David Adjaye Named as the First Recipient of the Charlotte Perriand Award

Dima Stouhi — Mon, 14 Feb 2022 07:30:00 +0000

Commended for his impactful contributions to architecture, design, and the community, Sir David Adjaye has been awarded with the inaugural Charlotte Perriand Award, an honor created by The Créateurs Design Awards that recognizes excellence and integrity in the design industry, and inspires future generations in honor of the late female trailblazer. The Ghanian-British 2021 RIBA Gold Medalist and founder of Adjaye Associates was selected for his achievements that "go beyond becoming city landmarks", and his holistic and impactful approach in developing residential, commercial, and cultural typologies.

Lesley Lokko Appointed Curator of the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale

Dima Stouhi — Tue, 14 Dec 2021 11:26:00 +0000

The Board of La Biennale di Venezia, has appointed Ghanaian-Scottish architect, academic, and novelist Lesley Lokko as Curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. The 18th International Architecture Exhibition will be held from Saturday 20 May to Sunday 26 November, 2023.

"Cultural Identity is Central to Architecture": In Conversation with Lesley Lokko

Christele Harrouk — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 07:30:00 +0000

Questioning the new now, especially with the new challenges of Covid-19, around the world, cities are advocating for structural change and collective action. Berlin questions, an annual, multi-day conference and a platform for transdisciplinary dialogue, in its 2021 edition “Metropolis: The New Now”, tackled the immediate present, creating a place for debate. Dedicated to local solutions to global challenges, the event took on a hybrid format, at various locations in Berlin and online, resembling the world we live in.

Germane Barnes Wins 2021 Wheelwright Prize

Eric Baldwin — Mon, 10 May 2021 10:00:00 +0000

Germane Barnes has won the 2021 Wheelwright Prize from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. The $100,000 prize will fund two years of travel and research for Barnes’s proposal Anatomical Transformations in Classical Architecture, an examination of classical Roman and Italian architecture through the lens of non-white constructors. Barnes will study how spaces have been transformed through the material contributions of the African Diaspora while creating new possibilities within investigations of Blackness.

The Chase Residence: The History Behind One of Texas' Most Radical Houses

David Heymann — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 03:30:00 +0000

The following text is excerpted from John S. Chase — The Chase Residence (Tower Books, 2020) by architect and University of Texas professor David Heymann and historian and Rice University lecturer Stephen Fox. Richly illustrated with archival materials and new drawings, the book is the first devoted to Chase, who was the first Black licensed architect in Texas. The study is divided into two parts, with Heymann examining the personal, social, and architectural significance of Chase’s own Houston house and Fox describing Chase’s architectural career.

MoMA Launches Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America

Eric Baldwin — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 05:30:00 +0000

The Museum of Modern Art has launched Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America, the fourth installment of the Issues in Contemporary Architecture series. Investigating the intersections of architecture, Blackness and anti–Black racism in the American context, the exhibition and accompanying publication examine contemporary architecture in the context of how systemic racism has fostered violent histories of discrimination and injustice in the United States.

Works by David Adjaye, Daniel Libeskind, and More for Bid to Support Black Women Architecture Students

Matt Hickman — Mon, 28 Dec 2020 03:30:00 +0000

Architecture for Change (ARCH), a newly launched nonprofit initiative dedicated to addressing systemic racism in the architecture and design industry, is kicking off with an online auction featuring donated works—sketches, models, plans, photographic prints, and more—from a host of notable architects including Sir David Adjaye, Daniel Libeskind, Michel Rojkind, David Rockwell, Jennifer Bonner, Trey Trahan, and others.

The Getty and USC Launch Talks Shedding Light on the Impact of Architect Paul R. Williams

Anthony Paletta — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 03:30:00 +0000

Paul Revere Williams, the late architect who was the first black member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), has recently been receiving some long-overdue recognition. The AIA awarded him a posthumous gold medal in 2017; a PBS documentary “Hollywood’s Architect: The Paul R. Williams Story” aired in February, and a book titled “Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer’s View” was published in September.