9 Black modernist architects and the landmarks they designed

By Carren Jao | Stacker Elon Schoenholz // Getty (Stacker) – When most people imagine modern architecture, names like Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Charles and Ray Eames come to mind; typically, it’s a white man (or, sometimes, the rare white woman). Their designs are now landmarks visited by thousands, but beyond this well-established canon lies a whole population of architects who continue to struggle for recognition in a field notorious for its lack of diversity. While there has been progress over the years, new Black architects continue to face challenges entering the field. In 2022, only 3% of newly licensed architects were Black, compared to 70% who identified as white, 15% Asian, and 10% Hispanic and Latino, according to the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards’ 2023 report. The share of Black architects has only gone up 1 percentage point since 2018. The industry has long excluded Black architects in systemic ways with laws and policies that denied them training and education in architecture, access to licensure exams, and membership in professional organizations. Even when Black architects overcome these obstacles, they are still often overlooked. “Historians are finding that many of them worked in larger architectural firms under white...