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We also recognized that African Americans have had a lengthy tradition in the building of this country beginning with architects like Joseph Francis Mangin, the principal designer of New York's City Hall, Benjamin Banneker, who assisted Pierre Charles L'Enfant in the planning of Washington D.C.3, Julian Abele, who designed the Widener Library at Harvard University and Paul Revere Williams, who designed Hollywood homes for a number of movie stars. Even today, architects like J. Max Bond, who is also the Dean of the School of Architecture at New York's City College, has been honored for his award winning design of the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change in Atlanta (1984) and Donald Stull and David Lee, partners in their own firm in Boston, have been recognized for their many award winning designs.

So we are determined to find out why there are so few African American architects and why the number of African American students has not increased at the same rate as women entering architecture school. Does there need to be greater visibility of role models for young men and women who might choose a career in architecture? Do new partnerships need to be forged between schools of architecture, practicing African American architects and agencies capable of providing support for college education for disadvantaged students? Is more public attention and exposure needed for African American architects who are producing high quality work?

These questions and more are expected to be answered in the next phase of our research.

Background to Preparation of this Directory:

Many of the estimates of the number of African American architects have been drawn from data supplied by either the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the third quarter report of 1990 lists 130,000 architects of whom 2,000 are African American) or the AIA (they estimate that there are between 80,000 and 84,000 registered architects of whom 1.1. percent are African American). But there are problems with both of these estimates. The Bureau of Labor Statistics requires no certification from those who claim to be architects that they are legally registered to practice and the AIA includes both registered and non-registered architects in their figures. This seems to make both estimates rather suspect. To legally practice architecture and to use the title "Architect" a person must be registered to practice in one of the fifty states in the United States or one of its territories. So what was required for this directory was to identify all the professionally registered African American architects. This became more difficult than we anticipated.

Additional research into the other articles listed above has shown that their authors used techniques to estimate the number of African American architects by extrapolating a total from the percentage of AIA regular members who are African American. The March 1991 AIA Minority Resources Committee Report list 389 registered African American AIA members from a total of 57,098 registered AIA members, or 0.7 percent). Based on the total number of registered architects (using AIA statistics) that there are in the USA, it follows that the same percentage who belong to the AIA (0.7 percent) would be African American. Thus by using the AIA's total of 84,000 architects, we would be led to conclude that there are approximately 588 African American architects.

So at the high end we have the Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing 2000 African American architects and at the low end we have the AIA statistics estimating approximately

3 Progressive Architecture, "Perspectives: A Legacy of Shadows"; February 1991, p. 85-87

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588 African American architects. But how do we determine if either figure is correct? Or if neither figure is correct, what is the most accurate total?

First, we need to establish our definition of who shall qualify as an "architect" for this directory.

Determining how many registered architects there are in the United States turns out to be a rather difficult task. Being registered to practice and being currently licensed to practice are two entirely different facts. When someone registered, they have met all the requirements (by education, by internship and by examination) of a state board to practice architecture. On the other hand, when an architect's license is "in force," they are both registered and current with their state dues and other requirements. Some architects, although registered, are delinquent with their dues; and, therefore, their licenses lapse. But having lapsed license does not necessarily mean that you lose your architectural registration. By paying past obligations, licenses are renewed and those licenses again become current. Consequently, the total number of architects legally practicing at any one time depends on whether you mean currently licensed or registered. For our directory, we accepted those who were registered. 

There are presently two primary sources for estimating the total number of registered architects. One is the AIA and the other the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). As we have noted above the AIA has estimated there are currently 80,000 to 84,000 registered architects (there are approximately 57,000 registered and non-registered AIA members). NCARB has estimated that there are 100,000 registered architects. Since an architect is neither required to be an AIA member nor to hold a NCARB certificate, these organizations are unable to provide an accurate total.

It might seem conceivable to determine a grand total by adding up the registrations in each and every state. But this would not be very accurate either because many architects are registered to practice in more than one state. Adding up only the resident architects in each state would provide a more accurate total, but most states do not break their directories down by resident and non-resident. Only by tediously logging in each name form each state directory could an accurate total be reached. And that total would not only reflect those currently licensed, not necessarily all those registered to practice; in other words, those who have allowed their licenses to lapse.

Other Estimates of African American Architects:

J. Max Bond was quoted by the Wall Street Journal (Dec. 1990) as saying that African Americans represent only one percent of all registered architects. Architecture, the AIA's house journal, more recently discussed minority firms in an article entitled "Invisible Architects" (April 1991)[[footnote 4]]. In this article Robert Traynham Coles AIA, was quoted as saying that while African Americans represent 12 percent of America's population, they comprise only 1.1 percent of the AIA's total membership (total membership consists of both registered and non-registered associate members). This makes African Americans one of the most under represented groups practicing architecture today. But this percentage is inaccurate because Coles has included bot regular members and associate members of the AIA in his total (associate members do not have to be registered architects or even architects at all, while regular members must be registered).

[[footnote 4]] Architecture, Invisible Architects", op. cit. p.106

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