Riding the vortex

Celebrating the first seven African-American

This two-part series expands on the Riding The Vortex presentation from the NOMA50 Conference held in Detroit, MI in October of 2021.

Being First

Foreword by Dr. Sharon Egretta Sutton, FAIA

Above: Norma Merrick Sklarek at Gruen Associates. Photo Credit: Re-Thinking the Future, via Pin-up Magazine

Seven is a magical number, significant in almost every major religion, associated with good luck, the days of the week, and the wonders of the world so celebrating the first seven African American women to achieve fellowship in the American Institute of Architects seems more than apt. The women in this magical cohort collectively accomplished their feat over a period of twenty-six years, from 1980 until 2006, and represent a diversity of geographies, career trajectories, and contributions to the field, some having the Ivy League credentials that boost careers and others not, some being located on the coasts where architecture flourishes and others not, some practicing in large firms that offer more opportunities for women and ethnic minorities and others not. Notwithstanding this incredible diversity, I would like to note three striking similarities in the career narratives of these first seven African American female fellows.

The first similarity is that they all reveal the women’s appetite for constructing multi-dimensional creative lives. Norma Sklarek, the first, preferred to coordinate large, technically demanding projects and she also raised three children, had numerous marital partners, and was adept at a variety of hobbies. Dr. Sharon Egretta Sutton, the second, draws upon five academic degrees to stitch together her teaching, research, writing, lecturing, and fine art, which she combines with a passion for community engagement, houseplants, Pekingese, and cockatiels. Allison Grace Williams, the third, balances professional and academic pursuits, working at many scales from her urban-focused design projects to student reviews and professional juries to her own printmaking and home renovations.

Ivenue Love-Stanley, the fourth, designs all sorts of structures and public places, is active in professional and civic service, and yet finds time to be Mother Goose at her Sunday school. Kathryn Bradford Tyler Prigmore, the fifth, specializes in the design of complex, politically sensitive projects for federal and military agencies, while also being an academic and voracious supporter of African American female architects.

Cheryl Lynn McAfee, the sixth, is CEO of a busy firm whose projects include the 1996 Olympic Games and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, and she is active in professional and public service, both locally and nationally. Roberta Washington, the seventh, works with a small staff—primarily people of color and women— to design socially conscious projects in four states, while also uncovering the hidden histories of the earliest African American architects and being active in professional service and cultural preservation. What Roberta wrote in her essay about Norma applies to all these women: they are “a testament to the fact that neither sexual nor racial barriers are necessarily deterrents to those who fight for a full life in architecture.”

The second similarity is that the career narratives all reveal the women’s deep commitment to giving back their privileges, which they accomplish through professional and public service and especially through teaching and mentoring. Roberta wrote that Norma, who taught at UCLA, changed lives by mentoring people, giving them their first job, guiding them through the licensure exam, or offering them advice on starting a firm. Sharon who has taught for 47 years at six universities, claims that her life purpose is to empower and educate disenfranchised communities and also promote social responsibility among architects and students. Allison, who has taught at Stanford University and UC—Berkeley, seeks “opportunities to work with talented people collaboratively and authentically” in order to find, or imagine, what could be. Ivenue espouses the biblical mantra of giving back, asserting that “it makes little sense to boast of being the first if you do not make a way for the second, the third, and the fourth.” Kathryn, who has taught at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Howard University, co-founded an organization that has greatly increased the number of African American women architects in the field by inspiring, mentoring, and connecting them to one another.

Cheryl is an outspoken advocate nationally for more leadership and career development opportunities for women and people of color, notably having sponsored a resolution that created a leadership pipeline within AIA for ethnically diverse women. Roberta designs projects for underserved populations and, through her research, seeks to make others aware of those who came before them. As Kathryn noted of herself, these women are generous in sharing the wisdom their mentors bestowed upon them with the architects and students who now seek their advice. The third—and most intriguing—similarity is that the career narratives all reveal the women’s enthusiastic embrace of credentialing, both as neophytes and fully seasoned authorities. Credentialing began in the nineteenth century when the white men who comprised the emerging occupations negotiated a social contract with the public that insured their status as experts and community leaders. Overtime, the most elite members of occupations like medicine and law pressured governments and the professions to create an airtight method of controlling who qualified as an expert. A partnership evolved in which governments established legal requirements for practice and the professions established the knowledge and skills needed to meet those requirements, both constraints limiting the number of experts by increasing the time and cost of becoming credentialed.

For example, the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB) formed to regulate professional degree programs whose curricula became lock-stepped to an internship and licensure exam that the National Council of Architectural Accreditation Boards (NCARB) would administer, a three-step process of regulating who could earn the credentials to practice architecture. Though women and persons of color drop out all along the way, at the last step of the licensure exam NCARB reported in 2021 that white candidates were more likely to pass than candidates of color, males more likely to pass than females, and younger candidates more likely to pass than older ones. Despite the exclusionary reality of credentialing, the women in this magical cohort embraced it.

Above: Excerpts of Ebony Magazine "A Blueprint for Success", 1984

In a 1984 Ebony article, Norma was quoted as saying that African American women had “to get the maximum amount of education and afterwards to obtain the license . . . The architectural license becomes the passport to the profession,” providing opportunities for faster advancement, better salaries, and greater responsibility. Whether working class or middle class, the women who followed her in becoming fellows took this advice, overcoming financial and social barriers to become licensed soon after graduation, though their route to fellowship took considerably longer than the ten years of required membership in the AIA.

Once protected by the social contract, practically all the women became enforcers of its terms by serving on the boards of various regulatory agencies. For example, Norma was a commissioner on the CA State Board of Examiners, Sharon was president of the NAAB, Ivenue served on the GA State Board of Architects and Interior Designers, Kathryn chaired the AIA National Ethics Council and served on the NCARB Committee on Examination, and Roberta was president of the New York State Board of Architecture.

I interpret the embrace of outsider-within status by these first female African American fellows as an endeavor to make an essentially exclusionary rite-of-passage as fair and transparent as it can possibly be. These hardworking, unstoppable women learned to negotiate and turn2 to their advantage barriers of all sorts. Then, they reached back to help others do the same.

Norma Sklarek, FAIA, NOMA

1928 - 2012

Written by Roberta Washington, FAIA, NOMAC

Above: Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles. Photo Credit: Getty Images

Norma Sklarek was born Norma Merrick in Harlem on April 15, 1928, to Walter Ernest Merrick and Amelia Willoughby Merrick. She attended public schools in New York, including the elite allgirl Hunter High School. Though she thought of becoming an artist, Norma said it was her father who first suggested that she study architecture To enter the five-year professional program at Columbia University’s School of Architecture, Norma needed the equivalent of a year of liberal arts education. To acquire this year, Norma attended Barnard College, a women’s school adjacent to the Columbia University campus from 1944-45. Norma received her Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1950. In 1954, Norma was licensed as an architect in New York, becoming the state’s first black woman to pass the exam. In 1962, Norma was licensed as an architect in California, also becoming that state’s first licensed black female. Norma often recounted how she had applied to work at twenty-nine different architecture firms with no success - before accepting a junior drafter’s job with the City of New York. In 1955, Norma, landed a job at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM), one of the largest architectural firms in the city. In addition to her work at SOM, where she worked until 1960, she also taught part-time at New York City Community College from 1957 to 1960. Norma was also active in the New York-based organization known as CANA (Council for the Advancement of the Negro in Architecture). Beverly Greene, the nation’s first licensed black female architect (1942 in Illinois), was also a CANA member. In the December 1956 issue of Ebony Magazine, Norma Fairweather, of Brooklyn, is photographed at the CANA exhibition of its members’ work in Harlem.

In 1960 Norma relocated to Los Angeles with five letters of recommendation in hand. The first firm that interviewed her, Gruen Associates, hired her. After six years at Gruen, Norma was made the director of Gruen’s architecture department where she oversaw the work of staff architects and coordinated technical aspects of large projects. During

her twenty years at Gruen, she was credited for her work on the California Mart, Fox Plaza, the American Embassy in Tokyo, the San Bernardino California City Hall and the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. While at Gruen Associates, Norma Pena met, and in 1967 married, Rolf Sklarek, an architect who had escaped Jewish persecution in Germany during World War II. After their marriage they lived in the house he built for them in Pasadena, CA. Rolf Sklarek died in 1984.

Between 1972 and 1978, when work was slow, Norma also taught at UCLA. In 1980, she joined Welton Becket Associates in Santa Monica as vice president and principal designer. She was the project director for Passenger Terminal One at Los Angeles International Airport and the Wilshire La Brea Metro Rail Station. From 1985 to 1989, she was a principal of the architectural firm Siegel-Sklarek-Diamond,

Above: Norma Sklarek with Jerde Partnership: Mall of America in Minneapolis, MN. Above: Norma Sklarek with Jerde Partnership: Horton Plaza in San Diego, CA. Photo Credit: julius/Flickr Creative Commons

AIA Architects, located in Los Angeles, CA, headed by Margot Siegel, Katherine Diamond and Norma Sklarek.

By 1991, Norma became a principal in charge of project management at the Jerde Partnership, where she once again worked on large-scale projects which interested her the most. Norma retired in 1992.

In addition to her professional work, Norma served on the boards of various organizations, including as a Commissioner of the California Architectural State Board of Examiners, the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the AIA California Council and various NCARB Grading Committees. Norma was the featured speaker at the 1983 “Minority Women in Architecture: A Sense of Achievement” conference at Howard University. She was also a recognized member of the National Organization of Minority Organization (NOMA). In the 1990s, Norma served as a technical adviser to the Architectural Graphic Standards publication.

In 1980, Norma Sklarek became the first black woman elevated to fellowship in the AIA, almost a century after the first woman, Louise Bethune (in 1889). Norma’s fellowship came twenty-three years after the first black male architect, Paul Revere Williams, achieved fellowship. In 2008, Norma Sklarek received the AIA’s Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award, which recognized her long trailblazing history and achievements against-the-odds in architecture.

Norma was a mother of three, an avid golfer, and a fierce bridge player. At work, she was all business, and at home,

with her husband Cornelius Welch, usually in their orchid flower garden outside their house in Pacific Palisades, CA, she was relaxed and funny. She left us on February 6th, 2012.

Many speak about how Norma had changed the course of their lives: by mentoring them, by giving them their first job, by guiding them through their architectural registration exams and their careers, by offering them advice on starting their own firms. Norma Sklarek was a mentor par excellence and an inspiration on rainy days. She is a testament to the fact that neither sexual nor racial barriers are necessarily deterrents to those who fight for a full life in architecture.

Dr. Sharon Egretta Sutton, FAIA

A Life Course Shaped by Serendipity

Above: Working with children in Detroit. Photo Credit: Sharon Egretta Sutton, Personal Archive

Unlike 75 percent of architects, I did not choose architecture at puberty but rather hitched my wagon to classical music, a passion that I acquired as a seventh grader at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. You see, its rigorous curriculum not only required that students take three years of Latin but it also required that they take either studio art, choir, or band alongside their courses in history, literature, and the natural sciences. I elected band and chose the French horn because it was the smallest of the free instruments, and I immediately fell headover-heels in love with it. When the junior band director, Mr. Sharpe, told me that I had the talent to pursue a career in music, doing so became my all-consuming ambition, despite forewarnings from just about everyone— except my dad—that a colored girl could never be a classical musician.

My first professional gig occurred when I was sixteen for a performance of Gustav Mahler with the Dayton Symphony Orchestra. In my senior year, after a devastating audition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, I traveled on to the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. Thanks to the instruction of several Curtis students in the art of auditioning, I won a full scholarship and relocated from the “gateway to the South” to the world’s greatest city for becoming a classical musician. I found professional work almost immediately because some orchestra always needed a French horn player and, though I have never researched it, I would imagine that I was the first African-American female brass player to perform in such top venues as the old Metropolitan Opera House and Radio City Music Hall. Even today, I do not see this popula-

Sharon performing at the Naumberg Bandshell in Central Park with the all-male Seufert Band in 1964. Photo: Courtesy of Sharon Egretta Sutton

tion playing brass instruments in these venues. I soon learned that Cincinnati’s de facto segregation practices existed even in the Promised Land, making it difficult for me to rent housing outside New York City’s designated (unsafe and unsavory) ghetto neighborhoods. To solve the problem, I purchased a vacant rooming house on Manhattan’s West Side and used urban renewal incentives—and sweat equity—to turn it into a Class A, rent-controlled apartment building. One of my first tenants, a graduate of Columbia University’s School of Architecture, said I should be an architect, but everyone else said I was better suited to interior design. So when I wearied of repetitious performances in the orchestra of the hit Broadway musical, Man of La Mancha, I decided to add some adventure to my days by enrolling in Parsons School of Design. Then came the student insurrection at Columbia that led the School of Architecture to begin recruiting African-American and Puerto Rican students, including myself, a real adventure that you can read about in my book When Ivory Towers Were Black.

I had intended to continue working in the theatre, but my Columbia teachers admonished that architecture school was a fulltime commitment, so I foolishly traded my union job for penury and a second full tuition scholarship. After graduating from Columbia in 1973 and receiving my license in 1976, I opened a sole proprietorship in a 2,000 squarefoot loft on Fifth Avenue that specialized in renovation, while also earning a doctoral degree in psychology, printing intaglio etchings (which produced the majority of my income), and teaching adjunct at Pratt Institute School of Architecture. I tentatively moved toward academia with a two-year stint at the University of Cincinnati School of Architecture and Interior Design, where I was the first female and first Afri-

Above: Sharon surveying the first building she renovated, an abandoned rooming house on Manhattan’s West Side in 1964. Photo Credit: Wayne Andre can- American faculty member. The school’s work-study schedule allowed me to keep my art and architecture practice in New York, but then the University of Michigan made an unsolicited offer. I was terrified of moving to the Midwest where the KKK had the reputation of being the strongest Klan organization outside the South, but I found irresistible an invitation from the “Harvard of the Midwest” where I would be the Architecture Program’s first female faculty.

So, I moved from midtown Manhattan to the only place where I could afford the real estate: a rural town outside Ann Arbor with an all-white population of Christian families. Then, one day in 1987, as I worked in my studio there (questioning my sanity in making the move), I heard, on the university radio station, African American faculty and students testifying live before the state legislature about their experiences of racism on campus and in town.

After the legislature threatened to withhold funding until the problem was addressed, the university adopted a plan called the Michigan Mandate that would bolster the number of faculty and students of color. I joined with other activist faculty (mostly from public health, social work, urban planning, and women’s studies) in urging the administration to look beyond numerical increases and adopt transformative approaches to education and dormitory life. Propelled by the Michigan Mandate, the university funded some of our proposals, as did several foundations.

Having developed a musician’s passion for social justice, my activism blossomed during this period, providing the dossier that guaranteed my promotion to full professor, elevation to fellowship, election as president of the National Architectural Accreditation Board, and induction into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame. As my 1994 FAIA statement read, I had achieved national distinction in my dual calling to teach the general public about architecture, while also promoting social responsibility among architects.

Above: Sharon celebrating her elevation to fellow in 1995 with the all-male contingent of AIA Michigan. Photo Courtesy of Sharon Egretta Sutton

The downside of my elevation is that it upended the dean’s status as the college’s only fellow. A person who had been a mentor when I was lower down on the career ladder became vicious, taking extreme measures to prevent me from moving up as chair of the Architecture Program. Stymied, I left Michigan for Seattle, a city known for its civic engagement processes where I could practice the theories of participation that were central to my research. As a member of the city’s design commission and chair of one of its design review boards, I assessed such projects as Rem Koolhaas’s Seattle Central Library, Peter Bohlin’s Seattle City Hall, a redesign of the Olmsted Brothers’ Cal Anderson Park, and Miller Hull’s Bullitt Center, the nation’s first building to achieve net-zero energy use. But my most satisfying civic practice occurred when I teamed up with a land-use attorney and transportation engineer to tutor union workers and low-income residents in resisting unwanted development in their neighborhoods. Though we never won these David and Goliath battles, they were empowering to us and the communities we assisted.

Above: Sharon received the Regents Award for Distinguished Public Service from the University of Michigan, 1992. Image Credit: Sharon Egretta Sutton Above: AIA Whitney M. Young Award acceptance, 2011, Below: Parsons Graduate Architecture Studio Review, 2021 Photo Courtesy: Sharon Egretta Sutton. Credit: Brian McGrath

Simultaneous with being a practicing citizen-architect, I was a professor at the University of Washington, where I had negotiated another affirmative action position as the college’s first African American faculty. Through a research center I directed, I oversaw design charrettes and design-build projects throughout the region, generating opportunities for public scholarship that reinforced my civic engagement. Then, unsolicited Ford Foundation funding allowed me to lead a 21-person research team in uncovering the incredible revitalization work that low-income youth of color do in community-based organizations across the country. As George Bush plunged the nation into the Iraq War, their resistance to marginalization lifted my spirits. I spent 17 1/2 years in Seattle stitching together scholarship and practice with social activism. Though another dean surfaced to prevent me from moving up as chair of the Architecture Department, I continued receiving recognition, including the AIA’s Whitney M. Young Jr. Award and a medal of honor from AIA Seattle. Still, over time, I became downright weary of being the only African American on a college faculty that numbered more than 80, inescapable whiteness pushing me back to classical music’s center where AIA New York, Columbia University, and a dean at Parsons School of Design laid out the red carpet for my homecoming.

Back in the world’s greatest city—and faced with the tragedy of Trump—I became obsessed with that old Ford Foundation study that had lifted my spirits during the Bush years. After many false starts, I completed a manuscript entitled A Pedagogy of Hope that demonstrates how low-income youth of color elevate themselves and their community, while pushing the nation toward democracy’s promise. As I settle into my forty-seventh year of teaching, await the publication of my fifth book, and try to potty train my sixth Pekingese, I offer this observation to those who are journeying behind me: serendipity (for example, being coached by helpful peers or receiving an unsolicited job offer or grant) can turn misfortune into opportunity, but you have to be open to the unexpected.

Allison G. Williams, FAIA

Hidden Behind The Work

Print Series: Out of the Woods. Credit: AGWms_studio 2021

Health Sciences and Research Campus at Princess Nora Abdulrahman University for Women. Photo Credit: Allison G. Williams

It is truly an honor to be part of this formidable group of women, Black Female Fellows, with the list continuing to grow. For much of my career as an architect I was hidden behind the work. I spent nearly 18 years at Skidmore Owings & Merrill, with my head down, aware and feeling some kinship with Norma Sklarek in her early career at SOM New York…in those black and white photographs surrounded by white men. But I don't think it was until I became Fellow in 1997 that awareness of a black woman leading design at that firm, if not in the country working at that scale, existed. It was then that I became aware of what an accomplishment it was; the accomplishment and the legacy that being black in this profession, and a black woman in this profession represented. I was doing what I love to do.

Most important for my moment in this VORTEX, however is to talk about the design discovery and the realm of ideas; and, how diversity of contribution is critical. I've always been a design leader in the large, corporate design firms where I’ve practiced. My background is in Fine Arts with an undergraduate degree from the University of California Berkeley. I took a year off and traveled after graduation, applied for graduate school in architecture while travelling, got in, made choices, and chose Berkeley. I continued to carry a love for drawing, making things, exploring ideas as provocation. I sought opportunities to work with talented people collaboratively and authentically.

Things always start with a seed in a sketch, in an iterative process. Some sketches are now recognizable built projects, some, explorations never to be built and some, doodles from last week. But an idea, an approach always starts with sketch, with a pen in hand with intention to scratch through the surface layer of what is or should be and finding or imagining what it could be, wholistically.

My first job out of school, before SOM, was with McCue Boone Tomsick (MBT), a no longer existing regional firm in San Francisco. I worked at MBT for two years, travelled again for a year, returned and worked for another year,

In the old days in the design studio, we used to stand at tall drafting boards, and my personal experience was being in a big room of people who didn't look like me. But I could not, I chose not to spend time thinking about the idea that I was the only woman almost always, and the only person of color always. It would have been a distraction. I focused on learning, exploring, discovering what I was good at and just kept getting better. In 1986, I was honored with a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard Graduate School of Design and took a year-long leave of absence from SOM, after which I returned for another 10 years.

I did not seek fellowship. It was not on my radar. When I was invited to submit (being eligible after the required 10 years as member of the AIA), it took me by surprise. The process of preparing the submittal for Fellowship was a major catharsis. Becoming a Fellow was an awakening and a turning point. It flipped a switch. The year I was elevated, I left SOM taking with me several good buildings, an amazing foundation for practice and a wealth of confidence and energy to step up. I joined Ai (a Washington, DC firm), as the national design partner, and opened the San Francisco office. When Ai merged with Perkins and Will in 2005, I became the design principal for Perkins and Will in the San Francisco office. Collectively, Ai+Perkins and Will formed a 15-year chapter of my life.

The images accompanying this article are simply some of my favorite projects; CREATE in Singapore and The Health Sciences Campus at Princess Nora Abdulrahman University for Women in Riyadh Saudi Arabia were both completed while I was a design principal with Perkins and Will.

Closest to my heart is The August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, a burst of ideas culminating in the competition win, designed with Ai prior to the acquisition. The City of Pittsburgh, the Client, my design team will be with me forever. There is nothing parallel to designing in the public realm where the outcome becomes urban art and legend in August Wilson’s name, for a client and community that shares your culture, values and hopes for the future. I'm originally from Cleveland, am in San Francisco now, but I am a Midwesterner at heart. This project was on a personal level a reunification of sorts.

Four years ago I started my studio: AGWms_studio. It has been quite active, just active enough even during the pandemic as a platform for my ongoing academic endeavours: at Stanford as an Adjunct Lecturer, and

The August Wilson Center in Pittsburgh, PA. Photo Credit: Joshua Franzos

CREATE (Center for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise) Singapore, by Perkins & Will with Allison G. Williams as design principal. Photo Credit: Timothy Griffin

at UC Berkeley last fall as the Distinguished Joseph Esherick Professor, where previously I was honored with The Howard Friedman Professor and The Distinguished Alumna in Architecture Award. The studio is involved in a well-balanced tapestry of things including; conceptual design collaborations with other design firms on projects with relevance, and urban complexity; design competition juries; academic studio critiques; and a host of design awards programs for the AIA. It also has included renovating my kitchen and designing the studio space (both al mano), including the cabinetry, laying the slate floors, hanging sheet rock…a small project way overdue. It makes me proud having built it myself, confirming that you can usually do much more than you think, and often more than an opportunity presents.

And finally, living inside of me still is the visual artist that is fascinated with printmaking, pattern and contrast, black and white figure ground inversion and the influence of bold color (Aaron Douglas, Robert Motherwell). I called the print series included here “Out of the Woods”. By invitation two of its plates were installed at the Royal Academy in London Summer Exhibition 2021.

I am rich in my experiences professionally and honored to be part of this VORTEX, increasingly more as I see the list of black female Fellows growing. I currently serve on the AIA Jury of Fellows and it was outstanding to see Sandra Little elevated last year. Congratulations!

Print Series: Out of the Woods, 2021. Photo Credit: AGWms_studio

This series was curated by Kathryn Prigmore with editing by Gabriela Baierle. Kathryn Prigmore, FAIA, NOMAC, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C, CDT Gabriela Baierle, AIA, NOMA, LEED AP BD+C