by Russell Boniface

AIA Diversity Committee Chair and Boston Architectural Center President and CEO Theodore Landsmark, Assoc. AIA, has been named the 2006 recipient of the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award, given to an individual who exemplifies the profession’s responsibility toward current social issues. The award honors civil rights leader Whitney M. Young Jr., proponent of social change and head of the Urban League from 1961 until his death in 1971. At the 1968 AIA national convention, Young challenged architects to more actively increase participation in the profession by minorities and women.

Strong advocate of diversity
Landsmark, who is also president-elect and co-chair of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), is a strong advocate of diversity within the architecture profession. He was thrust into Boston’s racial turmoil in 1976 when he was trying to walk across City Hall Plaza and was speared by a man wielding an American flag during a demonstration. The attack was captured by a photographer and the image broadcast nationally. Landsmark refuses to let that image define him. “My life has been a lot more interesting than the 20 second moment captured in that picture,” he told the Boston Globe last year.

Indeed. Theodore Landsmark has been president and CEO of the Boston Architectural Center (BAC) since 1997. Founded in 1889, it is the largest architecture school in New England. This year, the BAC received a gift in excess of a million dollars to establish The Robert Houseman and The Richard Kirkham Fund For Diverse High School Students Entering the Design Professions. For Landsmark, this addresses his concern that very few students from underrepresented groups have gone on to become practicing architects because of lack of mentorship. The funds will help “recruit, educate, mentor, and encourage young people who might not otherwise have considered careers in architecture or interior design,” Landsmark says. “Our hope is that this kind of gift will encourage similar programs across the country.”

A lack of mentorship is something Landsmark knows about firsthand. He graduated from Yale University in 1973 with degrees in both architecture and law. When faced with the decision of which field to enter, he chose law because he doubted he would be given the mentorship necessary through an architecture internship. During his career, he has focused particularly on architectural law. Thirty-plus years later, he believes that the architecture profession has not made great strides toward building a diverse work force. His role since 2002 as the chair of AIA’s Diversity Committee has allowed him to work with the committee to develop a data collection and analysis system to track diversity gains in the architecture profession and initiate diversity programs among AIA components.

“Our profession, our schools of design, including students and faculty must change to better reflect our nation’s emerging cultural and racial make up,” wrote Charles Redmon, FAIA, recipient of the 1985 AIA Kemper Award, in his letter of support. “I believe Ted’s passion and voice on this matter will greatly affect our ability to fulfill these goals.”

In 2004, the AIA Diversity Committee sponsored a day-long conference that resulted in the publication of a series of essays entitled “20 on 20/20 Vision: Perspectives on Diversity and Design” that called for, as Landsmark emphasized, “substantive actions that can change architecture.” In his introduction to “20/20,” Landsmark wrote: “[The essays] address the need for more consistent tracking data; describe models for recruiting more women, minorities, and professionals with disabilities; and underline the need for better internships and mentoring.”

Civic and cultural leader
Landsmark was born in Kansas City in 1946. His family moved to East Harlem in New York by the time he started school. After graduating from Yale, Landsmark moved to Boston in 1973 and served in the mayor’s administration helping to direct health outreach programs and efforts to curb youth violence. He then became director of Boston’s Office of Community Partnerships and later served as the dean of Graduate and Continuing Education at the Massachusetts College of Art, and as assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He held the position of administrator at Harvard University. He has lectured nationally on architecture education, diversity in the design profession, community organizing, and youth violence. In recent years, Landsmark completed his PhD in American studies at Boston University.

A passionate student of 18th- and 19th-century African American art, Landsmark has lectured extensively on the subject. He has received fellowships and awards from organizations such as the Winterthur Museum; the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, N.C.; and the National Science Foundation. He serves on the editorial board for Architecture Boston and the Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts. Landsmark also serves as a trustee to numerous arts-related foundations, including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Boston Fund for the Arts, and the New England Foundation for the Arts. He also has served as a trustee for Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, the Boston Foundation, and the Massachusetts Cultural Alliance.

Landsmark is a regular contributor to the Maine Antique Digest and is currently active working with the International Museum of African American History, scheduled to open in 2007, in Charleston, S.C. He was the keynote speaker last September at The Massachusetts Smart Growth Conference. That same year, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino appointed Landsmark to lead a 16-member task force to collect public opinion on how students should be assigned to public schools, an issue that has been the subject of racial controversy in Boston since forced busing started 30 years ago.

“There is a fundamental economic disconnect among racial groups in Boston,” Landsmark said in a lecture at the Boston Athenaeum. “And that disconnect raises some difficult questions around traditional models of assimilation and isolation in our communities. And the question I ask is: Do the emerging populations view themselves as fully integrated into American and Boston society, or are the emerging populations, which constitute half of the people who live in our city, likely to become part of what would be viewed as an oppressed and marginalized social class? Are we in or out?”

Recalling Whitney Young
Landsmark wrote in “20/20”: “We can do better. With the 35-year-old words of the late Whitney Young still echoing, I thank my peers who are committed to increasing diversity. I implore this profession to become more relevant. He wanted you to begin to speak out as a profession. I want this profession, as it looks forward to 2020, to meet the real needs of the society we serve.”

Recalling Landsmark’s multifaceted career and dedication to inclusiveness and diversity, Professor Kathryn H. Anthony, Ph.D., recipient of the 2003 Institute Honor for Collaborative Achievement wrote: “His personal, academic, and professional background has offered him a unique set of lenses through which to view our architectural profession. Throughout each of his careers, he has addressed key social issues. He has made significant and long-lasting contributions to promoting diversity and to the causes that Whitney Young espoused.”

Landsmark becomes the 35th recipient of the Whitney Young Jr. Award, which was established by the AIA in 1972. He will receive the 2006 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award at the AIA National Convention in Los Angeles in June.

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