Since 2012, Hill has surveyed hundreds of structures that she believes once served as a home to enslaved African Americans. More often than not, the buildings bear no visible trace of their past; many have been converted into garages, offices, or sometimes—unnervingly—bed-and-breakfasts. In some cases the structures have fallen into ruin or vanished entirely, leaving behind a depression in the ground. — Atlas Obscura
Writing in Atlas Obscura, writer Sabrina Imbler takes an in-depth look at the work of Jobie Hill, the Iowa City architect who started Saving Slave Houses, a project that aims to catalog, document, and ultimately preserve the remaining "living and working environments of enslaved people" in America.
Among many other thought-provoking comments, Hill tells Imbler, “There has never been a national survey of slave houses, except for the one I’m trying to do."
6 Comments
It would be an even greater acheivement, if some schools of architecture, from HBCUs would provide assistance. Nothing could be better than having undergrad architecture students from Howard etc., so the work of assisting Dr. Hill.
I understand the sympathetic tone and idea, but it's a little misplaced.
Put another way is your suggestion is "it would be nice if they contributed to revealing their architectural legacy to us." The problem is that the conditions in which these buildings and landscape were not made be enslaved people. This is an American legacy at large.
Here here. And vice versa white plantation houses are every American's legacy. We need to embrace it all, good, bad, and ugly as one people.
Pasadena has a slave house just off of Colorado Boulevard and Fair Oaks (now an Architecture firm, formerly Graphic Design office).
Slave quarters (built 1859) at the Bellamy House in Wilmington, NC.
The webpage shows the working conditions of the slaves and the video highlights some interesting architectural features of the main house such as a belvedere and windows that open vertically from the floor to allow access to the porch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The above link doesn't work reliably. You can find the video of the Bellamy Mansion by scrolling down on the parent site below.
https://www.bellamymansion.org...
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