Diversity: What the Numbers Tell Us
by Stephen A. Kliment, FAIA

Summary: In June 2004, AIA Convention delegates resolved to strengthen the demographic diversity of the design profession, including “access to the profession and career advancement for minorities, women, and other groups.” Honoring that resolution, AIArchitect offers a series by renowned architecture author Stephen A. Kliment, FAIA. In this first installment, Kliment sets the stage for his upcoming examinations of trail-blazing African-American architects and their work.

Below is a synopsis of the article. For the full text, click on the PDF link located in the column on the right.

“Merely engaging in high-minded debates about theoretical future reductions while continuing to steadily increase emissions represents a self-delusional and reckless approach. In some ways, that approach is worse than doing nothing at all, because it lulls the gullible into thinking that something is actually being done, when in fact it is not.”
—Al Gore, in a speech at NYU Law School, quoted in The NY Times September 19, 2006

Al Gore’s objection to lots of talk but little action has something in common with the urge to say the right things about the challenges facing African-American architects. But all this does little actually to advance the cause of greater opportunity for black architects.

African-American architects licensed to practice in one or more of the states at press time numbered 1,558, of whom 185 are women. This represents a mere 1.5 percent of the architects registered in the U.S., or about an eighth of the 12.1 percent African Americans represented among the U.S. population as a whole.

As one would expect, these practitioners range across a vast spectrum of firm size, ownership, employment status, gender, personal history, location, self-appraisal, and aspirations. Some came from humble beginnings, grew up attending all-black schools, were discouraged from embracing architecture as a career, yet persevered through architecture school and into practice. Others, from more privileged backgrounds, found their way with fewer bumps but not without facing various forms of discrimination in school and beyond. Some own their own firms; others have achieved full partnership in large, majority-owned firms. Still others have found careers in public service—permanently or as a stepping stone to private practice. A small contingent—a little more than 100—teach full-time in architecture schools; many taking on supplemental design projects.

The mood today
A small number of black-owned firms operate on the same lines as majority firms. They win a share of work from private and public sources, though more from the public patron. But many other firms work very hard to carry on—because they are small, or because they lack the benefits of networking, because, as the late Chicago-based publishing magnate and publisher of Ebony, John Johnson once told me, they’re “outside the area of gossip.” So they end up with a low volume of work and unadventurous clients, and they miss out on opportunities to do pioneering work, attract attention, make the professional journals, and recruit the most talented staff.

Black architects as individuals
By virtue of being in a tiny numerical minority, black architects often report being lone individuals in a firm and, thanks to remnants of racist attitudes, are often closely scrutinized and expected to produce a level of work not demanded of their majority colleagues. They are often denied the benefit of the doubt at promotion time when matched against majority and female colleagues. Some succeed despite the odds. For example, Ralph Jackson, FAIA, about whose life more in a later episode, is now the design partner in the 132-year-old Boston firm Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott.