DALLAS

ARCHITECTURE

FORUM

PRESENTS AFRICAN AMERICAN ARCHITECTS IN DALLAS:

PAST PRESENT FUTURE ON MARCH 26

AT NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER 

 

For press info:

Lisa Taylor, Taylor-Made Press

214-914-1099 or lisatmp@swbell.net

 

 

The Dallas Architecture Forum will present its Texas Regionalism Symposium in conjunction with the Oral History Program of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington on Saturday, March 26, 2011 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. at the Nasher Sculpture Center, 2001 Flora St in downtown Dallas.  The third annual Oral History of Texas Architecture Project Symposium will focus on “African American Architects in Dallas: Past Present Future”, with regional and national experts speaking to the symposium’s attendees. Admission is $50 for general public, $35 for members of Dallas Architecture Forum, Nasher Sculpture Center and for UTA faculty and staff, and $15 for UTA students.  For full information and to register:
http://www.uta.edu/architecture/events/oralhist.php

To register/pay only: https://payments.auctionpay.com/ver3/?id=w013769

 

African-American Architecture in Dallas: Past Present Future provides insight into the ways that African American architects and neighborhoods have helped shape the city of Dallas in the twentieth century.   Speakers in the morning session will address the role that individual practitioners like William Sidney Pittman, Texas’s first African-American architect, played in building the urban landscape in the early twentieth century, before World War II.  Pittman’s Knights of Pythias Temple stands on Elm Street as a lone reminder of the prosperous professional African-American community that once occupied Deep Ellum and old North Dallas.

 

The afternoon session will focus on the generation of architects who came of age in Dallas after the founding of the National Organization of Minority Architects in 1971.  John S. Chase, a Houston-based architect and first licensed African-American architect in Texas, was a founding member of the group.  Speakers include founding members of the Dallas Chapter of NOMA and alumni of Chase’s Dallas office, who will consider their design work in the city and the role of NOMA in their practices.

 

Schedule:

11:00            Nasher opens, event registration

11:30            Introductory remarks – Don Gatzke, Kate Holliday

            Morning session 

 

The Knights of Pythias Building and Pre-war African-American Dallas

Dr. Richard Dozier, Tuskegee University – William Sidney Pittman and African American architectural practice

Dr. Marvin Dulaney, University of Texas Arlington – Pittman, the Knights of Pythias Building and African-American Dallas

Dr. Marsha Prior, Geo-Marine – Lost Cultural Landscapes of African-American Dallas

Katherine Seale, Preservation Dallas, moderator

1:15             Lunch Break

2:30            Afternoon session

Panel discussion: Post-war African-American Architecture in Dallas and the Founding of NOMA

Al Bryant, Bryant-Blair Group, NOMA, Dallas  

Darrell Fitzgerald, FAIA, NOMA, Fitzgerald-Charles Group, Atlanta

Michael Johnson, AIA, NOMA, Johnson-McKibben, Dallas

Clyde Porter, FAIA, NOMA, Dallas County Community College District

 

Speaker bios:

 

Dr. Richard Dozier is Dean of the Taylor School of Architecture and Construction Science at Tuskegee University in Alabama.  He received his undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from Yale University and his doctorate from the University of Michigan.  Dr. Dozier was a resident fellow at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute at Harvard University from and the recipient of a Fulbright Award that allowed him to study urban preservation in Brazil.  His research covers many aspects of preservation and architecture, and he has written and lectured frequently about the history of African- American architectural practice in the United States.

 

Dr. Marvin Dulaney is Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas Arlington.  He received his doctorate from Ohio State University and was director of the Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture at the College of Charleston for many years.  Dr. Dulaney is the author of the forthcoming book Blacks in Dallas, to be published by Texas A&M University Press and he is involved in numerous community outreach projects, including the Juanita Craft Historic Community in Dallas and Project SPARKS, a collaboration with the Dallas Independent School District.

 

Darrell Fitzgerald, FAIA is principal in the Fitzgerald-Charles Group headquartered in Atlanta.  He earned his undergraduate degree in architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and his graduate degree from the GSD at Harvard University.  Mr. Fitzgerald was a principal for Gensler Worldwide in Atlanta for 12 years and prior to that worked with John Chase for 20 years, first in his Houston, then as the managing partner of the firm’s Dallas office.  He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a national AIA Honor Award for Community Service. 

 

Clyde Porter, FAIA, is Vice Chancellor of Facilities Management/Planning for the Dallas County Community College District.  He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from Prairie View A&M University.   In 2009 he was the recipient of the AIA’s Whitney M. Young, Jr. Award, recognizing his outstanding record of social responsibility in practice.  He has served as chair of the Dallas AIA’s Minority Resources Committee and prior to his work with DCCCD Mr. Porter served as chief architect for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority (DART).  

 

Dr. Marsha Prior is a cultural anthropologist and Director of Historical Research Services for Geo-Marine, Inc.  She earned her PhD from Southern Methodist University and is an expert in the field of cultural resources management.  Dr. Prior has authored numerous reports on the history of Texas, including award-winning analyses of the development of Fort Bliss and spent many years researching the African-American neighborhoods of Freedman’s Town and the old North Dallas.  She co-authored “From Freedman’s Town to Uptown,” which appeared in Urban Anthropology in 2005.

 

ABOUT THE DALLAS ARCHITECTURE FORUM

 

The Dallas Architecture Forum provides a continuing and challenging public discourse on architecture and urban design in - and for - the Dallas area. The Forum offers presentations of architecture through public lectures by designers, critics, and historians; through topical discussions; and through occasional study tours to buildings and cities locally and throughout the world. The Dallas Architecture Forum serves as an inclusive arena where people interested in and concerned with the built environment, non-professionals and professionals alike, may interact intellectually and socially. Our membership comes from business, development, public affairs, education, the arts and from the design fields. This mix of interests and ties is one of the strengths we bring to our involvement with architecture. Support for the Forum's programs is a grassroots effort, coming from membership subscriptions at all levels and from the generous sponsorship of Forum seasons and events. Visit dallasarchitectureforum.org or call 214-764-2406.

Lisa Taylor





Dedicated to Promoting Culture
923 Salmon Dr.
Dallas, TX 75208
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214-914-1099