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April 9, 1992

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Renewed Hope for Black Architects

[[image]] - Danny Turner for The New York Times

Darrell Fitzgerald, former head of the American Institute of Architect's Minority Resources Committee, in front of his office in Dallas.

By EVE M. KAHN

In 1968, Whitney M. Young Jr., then the head of the National Urban League, took the American Institute of Architects to task. He told its annual convention in no uncertain terms that the group had fostered urban blight with its "thunderous silence" and lack of black members, thereby tightening "the white noose around the central city." His speech spurred the profession and the public: architecture scholarships for minorities started flowing, the National Organization for Minority Architects was formed, and government contracts began requiring minority participation.

And there it all stopped. In 1968, black architects made up one half of 1 percent of the A.I.A.'s 20,000 members; today, these numbers have risen to 1.2 percent of 57,000 members. "African American Architects in Current Practice" by Jack Travis (Princeton Architectural Press, 1991) notes that architectural scholarships for minorities have now waned and that black-owned firms rely on now-scarce public commissions.

But in the last two years, there has been a surge of activity. Through writing, lecturing, lobbying and networking, determined young black architects like the four profiled on page B6 are trying to force the rest of the profession to pay heed again.

"There's excitement now the way there was from 1969 to 1971," said Mr. Travis, a black architect whose book tells the stories of 35 black architects.

In the last year, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and Howard University have established archives to document the work of black designers. Last fall, Yale University mounted an exhibition of architecture by blacks, and the University of Cincinnati published a directory of 877 black architects, the first nationwide listing.

The National Organization of Minority Architects, or NOMA, is expanding, with mentor programs and grants for documentaries. The A.I.A.'s Minority Resources Committee, founded seven years ago, has been working with NOMA on projects like student competitions. This month, the A.I.A. set up a task force to further address complaints.

Still, prospects for black architects now could be described as hazy. The A.I.A.'s statistics on sex and race, collected only since 1983, indicate a 6 percent increase in black membership since March 1991 and an

Continued on Page B6