Archinect - News

Mabel O. Wilson to deliver 74th A. W. Mellon Lecture in the Fine Arts this spring

2024-09-23T11:32:00-04:00

Mabel O. Wilson, the celebrated multivariate writer and architect, has been announced to deliver the 74th A. W. Mellon Lecture in the Fine Arts at the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington, D.C. The four-part series is being presented under the theme 'America’s Architecture of Freedom and Unfreedom,' which presages Wilson’s forthcoming book on slavery’s role in shaping U.S. civic architecture.

"Wilson’s groundbreaking research on our nation’s architecture, including that which surrounds the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, encourages us to relearn and reconstruct our lived environments, providing new insights and reckonings," Steven Nelson, the dean of the Center, said, speaking to the discoveries latent within her work.

The lectures will take place every Sunday from March 9th to March 30th, 2025.

A new documentary explores the process behind UVA's Memorial to Enslaved Laborers for the first time

2022-11-07T17:42:00-05:00

A new documentary from local filmmaker Erik Duda exploring the process and impact of the University of Virginia’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers has been released, providing insights into the creation of one of the most important public monuments in America since the opening of Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial in 1982.

Titled The Lives Between the Lines, Duda’s documentary was included as part of this year’s Virginia Film Festival and offers a look into the implementation, design, and eventual construction of the monument, which, unfortunately, had to open in a subdued ceremony last year owing to health concerns related to the pandemic.

Previously on Archinect: A decade in the making, UVA’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers begins to take shape

The memorial was first commissioned in 2013 as part of the UVA President’s Commission on Slavery and the University, which eventually led to the formation of a Community Engagement Committee comprised of descendants of the enslaved communities ...

New $3.1 million Conserving Black Modernism grant program announced by the Getty Foundation and National Trust for Historic Preservation

2022-09-19T14:37:00-04:00

The Getty Foundation together with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund has announced the commitment of $3.1 million in the form of institutional grants to individuals and organizations that are working to preserve the legacy of historic modern architecture designed by Black architects nationwide.

Under the title Conserving Black Modernism, the two-year grant program, part of a larger $80 million effort overseen by the Action Fund, will support the documentation of 16 overlooked sites across the country while providing useful preservation training and storytelling resources to their future stewards.

The Getty says they are remiss at not including any works by one of America’s many underappreciated Black designers in its otherwise successful Keeping It Modern initiative and will look to address this absence with a new program that helps enshrine their contributions to what became the most defining architectural movement of the ...

Mabel O. Wilson, Deborah Berke, Thomas Phifer, and Michael Van Valkenburgh among members of the 2022 American Academy of Arts and Letters

2022-03-10T13:19:00-05:00

Writer and academic Mabel O. Wilson, architect Thomas Phifer, landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh, and Yale SoA Dean Deborah Berke are among the newly-elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters according to an announcement from the institution yesterday.

The quartet joined the Academy with fourteen other honorees in music, art, and literature on a list of names that included painter Charles Gaines and The Things They Carried author Tim O’Brien.

Deborah Berke of Deborah Berke Partners

2022 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education recipient, Deborah Berke, FAIA. Photo: Winnie Au, courtesy Deborah Berke Partners

Berke has served as Dean of the Yale School of Architecture since 2016 in addition to operating her own New York-based practice, which she founded in 1982.

Thomas Phifer of Thomas Phifer and Partners

Image courtesy Thomas Pfifer and Partners

Phifer is the architect behind the recent expansion of Maryland’s Glenstone Museum and...

Mabel O. Wilson to receive National Building Museum’s Vincent Scully Prize

2021-10-05T19:43:00-04:00

Architect, critic, cultural historian, and current Columbia GSAPP faculty member Mabel O. Wilson has been named as this year’s winner of the National Building Museum’s prestigious annual Vincent Scully Prize recognizing “excellence in practice, scholarship, or criticism in architecture, historic preservation, and urban design.”

The award, named after the late architecture historian, has been given out every year since 1999 and will now honor Wilson as its 23rd recipient. Wilson joins a list of past winners that includes fellow writers Jane Jacobs and Paul Goldberger as well as other important voices like the architect Phyliss Lambert and television commentator Charlie Rose.

The author of Negro Building: Black Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums and the co-curator of a recent well-received MoMA exhibition, Wilson has steadily made a name for herself through her writing, research, and other creative projects including the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virg...

Online architecture event recommendations for the week of March 3-10

2021-03-03T09:10:00-05:00

This week's list of featured online events from Archinect's Virtual Event Guide includes lectures, presentations, discussions, a conference, an award presentation, and a symposium.

Are you hosting a virtual lecture? Presentation? Tour? Interview? Happy Hour? Submit it for consideration by clicking here.

Are you an expert in an arena that's especially important right now? Let us know if you would like to work with Archinect to host an online event.

Lecture: Mark Lee | JOHNSTONMARKLEE
Wednesday, March 3, 2021 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
Since its establishment in 1998 in Los Angeles, Johnston Marklee has been recognized nationally and internationally with over 40 major awards and numerous publications. Projects undertaken by Johnston Marklee are diverse in scale and type, spanning fourteen countries throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia.
Click here to attend and/or register

Mabel O. Wilson: Studio&: A Black Study
Wednesday, March 3, 2021 | 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM PDT
Mabel O. Wilson ...

Mabel O. Wilson receives UVA's Distinguished Alumni award

2020-07-24T20:46:00-04:00

Architect, historian, and educator Mabel O. Wilson has been named as the 2020 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient by the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Architecture.

Wilson graduated from UVA with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture in 1985, and has been selected to receive the prestigious award among other "exceptional graduates from the School of Architecture who have demonstrated creativity, innovation, leadership, and vision through their distinguished body of work, within the professional, academic, civic, or artistic realms, as well as their service to the University of Virginia," according to the school's website.

Professor Wilson is the Nancy and George E. Rupp Professor of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation and Professor of African American and African Diasporic Studies at Columbia University. She also serves as the Director of the Institute for the Research in African American Studies, the Director of Graduate Studies for the African American and African...

Black Columbia GSAPP faculty and students push school for comprehensive reforms

2020-06-30T18:54:00-04:00

A growing chorus of Black students and faculty members at prestigious universities across the country are pushing for substantive change with regards to the persistent lack of diversity and representation within these institutions.

Two weeks ago, following a blistering letter from the African American Student Union and AfricaGSD student groups at Harvard University, Harvard Graduate School of Design Dean Sarah Whiting published a list of initiatives the school would undertake in coming months to begin to address these concerns. Students at Yale, Rice University, and many other schools have also published open letters imploring school administrators to take basic, concrete steps toward incorporating and valuing the work, scholarly contributions, and perspectives of Black students, faculty, critics, and academics.

This week, Black students and faculty at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP) published separate statements arguing ...

Expanding the definition of universal design in a post-COVID world

2020-06-19T17:34:00-04:00

Rather than respond with temporary barriers or signs, [Joel] Sanders is trying to use MIX’s research process to arrive at designs that minimize the spread of the coronavirus and appeal to diverse users. This, he hopes, will result in buildings that endure, whether or not a vaccine becomes available.

Writing in The New York Times Magazine, journalist Kim Tingley takes a long look at the ways in which the design of everyday and communal spaces might shift to become more universally accessible following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The article engages with emerging design ideas resulting from new social distancing guidelines and includes perspectives from Joel Sanders of Joel Sanders Architect, Vishaan Chakrabarti of PAU, Mabel O. Wilson of Columbia University, Rosalie Genevro of the Architectural League of New York, and Deborah Berke of Yale University, among others.

Society of Architectural Historians Seattle conference rescheduled as online event

2020-03-20T20:51:00-04:00

The Society of Architectural Historians (SAH) announced today that it will reschedule its previously cancelled annual conference as an online-only event.

SAH’s Seattle 2020 Conference was initially scheduled to take place April 29th through May 3rd in Seattle, but it had to be cancelled as the growing novel coronavirus pandemic began to disrupt previously planned Spring conferences and events.

As a result of the pandemic and social distancing measures put in place to limit the spread of the virus, SAH has elected to reschedule the gathering as a virtual conference that will take place Thursday, April 30, and Friday, May 1, 2020 via Zoom. A schedule for the conference, which will be broadcast live on Pacific Standard Time, can be found here.

The group’s website states, “The SAH 2020 Virtual Conference will bring together professionals from around the world who focus on the history of the built environment and its role in shaping contemporary life.”

Like the IRL gathering had plann...

Harvard GSD launches digital repository highlighting the work of African American architects and designers

2019-05-31T12:41:00-04:00

The Design Nexus seeks to honor the work of African American designers from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds together on a single platform to showcase their craft and the places they work.

The Harvard University Graduate School of Design has launched the African American Design Nexus (AADN), a new virtual collection that highlights African American architects and designers from various generations, practices, and backgrounds.

National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C. Image: Rex Hammock/Flickr

The collection profiles noted African American architects, including Mabel O. Wilson, founder of Studio &, and Paul Revere Williams, as well as specific projects and sites that are designed by African American architects or have played a significant role in African American history. Chronicled sites include the city of Los Angeles, as well as the National Museum of African American History in Washington, D.C., which was designed in collaboration between Adjaye Associates, The Freelon Group, Davis Brody Bond, SmithGroupJJR, and Perkins + Will. Perkins + Will's August Wilson Center for African American Culture in Pittsburgh is also highlighted in the collecti...