Phillip Smith ’19 M.Arch. explores the historical influence of classical and traditional architecture beginning with Egyptian influence on ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and later sharing the impact African American architects, designers, and builders have had on our built environment.
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Phillip Smith ’19 M.Arch. explores the historical influence of classical and traditional architecture beginning with Egyptian influence on ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and later sharing the impact African American architects, designers, and builders have had on our built environment.
Thanks for listening! The ThinkND Podcast is brought to you by ThinkND, the University of Notre Dame's online learning community. We connect you with videos, podcasts, articles, courses, and other resources to inspire minds and spark conversations on topics that matter to you — everything from faith and politics, to science, technology, and your career.
Good evening, it's my distinct pleasure to have been asked to introduce tonight's guest speaker. I do want to assure you that my opening remarks will be brief, but I do want to begin this introduction by thanking the graciously sponsored tonight's lecture. and a warm welcome to all of you who are here in the auditorium and those of us who are joining us. One of the privileges of teaching in the School of Architecture is the opportunity to advise graduate students on the completion of an architectural thesis. A comprehensive work of scholarship that includes taking a theoretical proposition about architecture and defending it through the design of a building and its context. The thesis is both publicly presented and documented in written form to be printed, bound, and entered into our library collection. Over the last 10 years, I've had the chance to work with more than two dozen master's degree candidates on their individual thesis projects, including Philip Smith, who is our guest presenter this evening. Philip came to me in the spring of 2019 dissatisfied with the proposed design for an international African American museum in Charleston, South Carolina. He elected to use his thesis semester to design a better alternative, one that might be more responsive to people and place. A direct critique of the proposed museum. As a counter proposal, it allowed Philip to craft a compelling architectural argument through comparison and contrast. His ultimate design was a significant departure from the proposal of the architecture firm Peikob Fried, and over the course of our semester together, gave rise to an ongoing conversation about the negative associations of classical architecture, particularly in relation to buildings of the Old South. Philip developed a theoretical position about architecture that recast classical architecture as exemplifying the very best of African American community of Charleston, because the vast majority of this city was built, detailed, and to an extent designed by enslaved labor. In a sense, the enslaved community made this language their own by both employing and translating elements of classical architecture into new pieces of creative work. This insight first occurred to Philip while searching for local building precedent, and in the process, identifying a widespread use of classical forms and details on every building significant to the African American community, most especially in their places of worship. It was in this insight that propelled Philip through his thesis work, and I am happy to learn, continues today to be the foundation of his subsequent investigations into the architecture of African American communities. in the greater Charleston area. I look forward to Philip's presentation this evening and I am glad that he agreed to share more about his ideas and passions with all of us tonight. Born and raised in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, Philip Smith is the son of the late David Smith and Laura Smith. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Historic Preservation and Community Planning from the College of Charleston and a Master of Architecture from the University of Notre Dame. He currently serves as a professor of classical architecture at the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston, South Carolina, and as a junior partner in Innova Architecture. Smith is the 2023 Georgia Tech Academy of Medicine lecturer. Smith also serves as a Board of Trustees member of the Charleston Museum, a State Board of Review member for the South Carolina National Register of Historic Places. A community advisory board member for the Carolina Low Country and Atlantic World Program, and as an expert docent for the annual Fall Homes and Gardens Tour with the Preservation Society of Charleston. Please give a warm welcome to Philip Smith.
Phillip Smith ’19 M.Arch:Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you, Professor Meller, for that, for that introduction. As he stated, Professor Meller and I got, became really close, during the process of thesis semester. And what occurred in the spring of 2019? was an attempt to debunk a myth that exists within the African American community. That classical and traditional architecture is a legacy of racism. While there is a negative association of this tradition with the plantations of the Old South, there is a positive reality to classicism in the African American diaspora, particularly in Charleston, South Carolina. The historical record of Charleston is defined by remarkable structures that exemplify the very best of American classicism. From the Georgian Beaux Arts, from the Georgian to the Beaux Arts, buildings such as the Old Exchange Building, Charleston City Hall, Trinity United Methodist Church, and the United States Customs House. These buildings serve as examples of well proportioned, durable architecture that have stood the test of time against fire, flood, and war. More importantly, virtually every structure in the city constructed before 1865 was built, detailed, and to an extent designed entirely by the enslaved of Charleston. There was a deeply rooted understanding of building in relation to the human scale that derived as early as the great structures of Egypt. Centuries before arriving in British North America, Africans from various regions of the continent had developed building practices utilizing locally sourced materials. including stone, mud, wood, to create communities. It was this knowledge, in addition to published Western European architectural treatises, that informed the creation of the city of Charleston as loved in the present day. Even amongst antiquity, circa 430 BC, Herodotus gives an account of Egypt. He says, moreover, they resolve to join all together and leave a memorial of themselves. And having so resolved, they cause to be made the labyrinth. situated a little above the lake of Moiris and nearly opposite to that which is called the City of the Crocodiles. I saw this, saw this myself and found it A greater work, a greater than words can say four of one should put together and record upon all the buildings and all the great works produced by the Helenes. They would prove to be inferior in labor and expense to this labyrinth. Though it is true that both the temple at Ephesus and that at same also works of where note, the pyramids also were greater than words can say. Each of them is equal to the many works of the Helenes. As great as they may be. But the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. Pliny then goes on to describe the labyrinth in a very similar situation. But the essential part about the understanding of the African American experience in regards to classicism, it starts with the actual settling of the Carolina colony. Following the restoration of the English monarchy after the English Civil War, Charles II signed the charter for the colony of Carolina and granted a large tract of land to eight proprietors on March 24th, 1663. By April of 1670, 150 settlers, including one enslaved African, sailed up the Ashley River and established Charlestown. Ten years later, the settlement was abandoned at this location and reestablished in reestablished Charlestown in its present location at Oyster Point. These new inhabitants of the colony primarily the second and third born sons of wealthy Barbados sugar planters brought with them their ambitions of wealth born upon the legacy of exploitative plantation agriculture. Between 1670 and 1740, the enslaved population of the colony of South Carolina grew from 200 To 39, 155. Many of these enslaved people originated from the West African rice growing region that includes modern day Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, The Gambia. Senegal, and portions of Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. the importation of West Africans from this specified region to South Carolina was deliberate. An abundance of freshwater rivers and tidal creeks that responded to coastal tides and a subtropical climate allowed for hot, humid summers and cool, mild winters that nearly mimicked the rice region of West Africa. And the conditions were ideal for the cultivation of rice. These enslaved people had an extensive knowledge and a deeply rooted agricultural traditions of rice cultivation and processing. And it was with this knowledge that the colony of South Carolina thrived and became the wealthiest of the 13 colonies. Successful rice plantations were established along the Ashley, the Cooper, the Wando, and the Santee rivers. Familiar names such as Drayton Hall and Middleton Place and Wahpoo Plantation not only produced thousands of pounds of rice and millions of dollars, but also the founders of the United States. Charles Pinckney, the father of Charles Coatsworth Pinckney, a signer of the Constitution, was the Advocate General for the Court of the Vice Admiralty and the Attorney General of the Province of South Carolina. He was also the first of, the first to be the, the sit for the bar in, for the province of South Carolina. And he was one of these men. Now, Pinkney, like most rice planters, held urban residences within the city of Charleston. Later, Charlestown, later Charleston. Uniquely, the construction of the Pinkney Mansion, which was destroyed by fire in 1860, began in 1746, Pinckney tediously recorded all the work being done at the site, and he consistently mentions a slave, an enslaved man by the name of John Williams. Williams was born to an enslaved mother and a white father on the Wapu plantation. Eliza Lucas inherited Wapu and its slaves upon her father's death, and she later married Charles Pinckney. Eliza Pinckney is often given credit for Revolutionizing the processing of indigo, but it was John Williams who created the wooden vats that allowed for the raw indigo to cure in water to be then to be able to produce the finest dye that brought more than 25, 225 pounds per shipment. Williams, known for his exceptional skill in carpentry and joinery, was approached by Charles with a set of architectural drawings and a contract for his labor in the construction of the ThinkND mansion. Pinkney, a gentleman architect, had developed architectural plans that reflected his European travels. And took into account his accomplished carpenter, John Williams. In the same year, Pinkney wrote of an account of carpenters and joiners work to be proposed, proposed to be done in a brick house for Charles Pinkney Esquire at the end of the north end of the bay of Charlestown. This documented designs of, for the woodwork on each floor of the house. As well as specific rooms. He referenced examples found in other homes in Charleston to serve as precedent. On the ground floor, Pinkney requested two outside cellar door frames, four and a half feet wide, six inches, six feet, two inches high, with a bead and single architrave. Four inner cellar cases with a bead, no architrave. Of course, this bead and single architrave refers to the bead and real molding for the architraves of the doors. Pinkney's request that four interior cellar doors, cellar door frames have no architraves emphasizes the cellar's function as a working area rather than a formal space. On the first floor, Pinkney specified details such as one large Venetian window upon the half pace of the stair according to the plan, the best parlor to be rains coated on the chimney side with a double round cornice, surface, window seats and jams. This particular detail of the fenestration of the stair hole became a common element of the mid to late 18th century Charleston mansions. On the second floor Pinkney specified details such as the dining room ceiling to be coved into the roof. So as to make this room at least 14 foot high in the clear. Pinckney's 1746 Carpenters and Joiners Work Proposed document suggests that John Williams was certainly a master carpenter. Not only did Williams complete a vast amount of the mansion's work, but he also supervised the work of at least eight men. Among them were the enslaved men Charles, Pumpy, Patrick, who was John's apprentice, Caesar, Peter, Prince, and Archer. The Pinckney's mansion's architectural significance has often been compared to Drayton Hall, suggesting that Pinckney used the Ashley River Plantation as a primary precedent. However, recent dendrochronology tests have discovered that the roof tempers of Drayton Hall were harvested in the winter of 1747, giving Drayton Hall a construction timeline of 1748 to 1752. According to the Pinckney Papers, by October of 1747, the masonry work of the mansion had been complete, and by the end of the month, bills for payment of the slate roof work had been submitted. Together, this indicates that the Pinckney Mansion predated Drayton Hall by two years. For John Williams, this is evidence that The Pinkney's architectural designs and Williams execution of these designs may have influenced the design of Drayton Hall. The design undoubtedly influenced the Miles Bruton house, particularly in the stair window and the dining room, which is nearly identical to the one in the Pinkney mansion in proportion. But at the time of its completion in 1750, the Pinckney Mansion was one of the first English Palladian villas to be built in Charleston, and one of the earliest homes in the United States to have a temple front imposed on its front, on its façade. The façade of the house consisted of five bays. The three center bays comprised the architectural focus of the ionic temple front. Marble pilasters separated each of the three center bays and supported an entablature impediment. It has been suggested that Pinckney was also one of the first in the colonies to emphasize the orders against the brick facade, a defining feature of American Georgian architecture. But it was the skilled labor of Williams and the enslaved that he oversaw that brought to life the ideas Pinckney could only express on drafting paper. On May 12th, 1750, Charles and Eliza Lucas Pinckney granted Williams his freedom. Three weeks later, Williams placed an advertisement in the South Carolina Gazette for work as a carpenter and joiner, noting that he was a free man of color. He continued to work for Pinckney after the completion of the mansion. Two months following, two months following Williams purchase, two months following Williams purchases, four lots of land on Ellery Street and permanently relocates from Wahpoo Plantation to Charleston proper. In June of 1750, to 1770, April of 1752, a document titled The Honorable Charles Pinckney Esquire to John Williams. Williams reported the tasks completed by himself and the men enslaved by Pinckney, including Williams former apprentice, Pompey. Williams noted tasks completed by himself and the men enslaved by Pinckney. This document and others indicates that John was not the only enslaved man. John Williams was not the only enslaved man to benefit from his own building talents. By teaching other enslaved the carpentry and joinery trades and supervising their work, Williams equipped those men with skills that elevated them to the status of craftsmen. Because of Williams, these enslaved men were able to earn wages, contract work for themselves, and gain a degree of independence formerly unimagined. Before the Pinkleys left Charleston for Great Britain in 1753, Charles recorded that Williams paid him four pounds For a book of architecture, this book purchased from Pinckney was none other than James Gibbs Book of Architecture. Published in 1728, Gibbs opens his treatise by defining the nature of the publication and the audience. The collection of the designs was to, was, quote, undertaken at this instance of several persons of quality. Who were of opinion that such a work would be of such use to, would be of use to such gentlemen as might be concerned in building, especially in the remote parts of the country, where little or no assistance for designs can be procured. Such may be here furnished with drafts of useful and convenient buildings and proper ornaments, which may be executed by a workman who understands lines. Either here, either as here designed or with some alteration, which may be easily, which may be easily made by a person of judgement. This pattern book contained 140 plates. Including a double page perspective of St. Martin in the Fields floor plan, elevations, and sections. It also included country houses and churches. The book offered a wide variety of buildings and decorative types, from chapels and university buildings to tombs, sarcophagi, chimney pieces, and pavilions, and sundials. Gibbs influence throughout Pinckney's designs of the Pinckney Mansion is most notable for his design of a cove ceiling in the dining room, which have also been featured in the publication. But we know that there's a heavy influence to the Miles Bruton house, which is the only thing that actually exists at this time. But unknowingly, Gibbs declares that the designs found within his publication could even be built by an enslaved person, who were considered inferior in all aspects of 18th century society. Williams purchase, however, was only legal with the securing of his freedom. The 1739 South Carolina Slave Code made it illegal to teach an enslaved person to read or write. Anyone caught doing so could face a fine of 100 pounds or six months in prison and in some cases could be executed. Charles Pinckney, who was an active politician, was well aware of the law and he would have followed it to the letter. But John Williams is a remarkable character during this time. Defying the odds, Williams did learn to read and write as shown in his record keeping. The Pecony Mansion set forth a precedent for the 18th century Georgian building stock of Charleston and was executed by men who were strictly forbidden to be formally educated in a Western sense. Unable to understand written English, these men managed to create these architectural masterpieces. Perhaps it's simply a matter of imitation, or perhaps an inherent and ingrained knowledge. A knowledge as deep as the very DNA that comprised these men, one from a long tradition passed from generation to generation. Rice cultivation was not the only expertise these enslaved people brought with them, but an ancient understanding of tectonics. In a similar manner in which the Romans relied upon Egyptian quarries and stone basins, Charlestonians relied upon the knowledge of the enslaved to maintain a thriving and growing city and colony. The importance of this treaty being purchased by Williams reaches much further than the Pinckney Mansion and its influence on domestic architecture in Charleston. It is well known that the Gibbs designs of St. Martin in the Fields was the direct precedent for the design of St. Michael's Church, Charleston. The success of the book helped establish St. Martin's as a prototype of many churches in the English speaking world. And by 1730, the church had become the most compelling Protestant form. He introduced a monumental projecting hexastyle temple portico across the entire West Front. Allowing an unbroken continuity from its outer columns to the evenly spaced pilasters of the north and south elevations. And for the first time, a spire arose directly from the pavement. The temple portico and the multi steered teeple became the rule rather than the exception. Particularly in the newly founded North American colonies, and St. Michael's was among the first of the colonial churches to follow the example of St. Martin's. Interestingly, 80 percent of African American sacred architecture, interestingly, 80 percent of the African American sacred architecture, that exists today derives from a classical or traditional president. And of that 80% Nearly half follow the example of St. Martin in the Fields. The importance of the church in the African American community has and continues to be paramount. As an institution, it is the heart of the community, the very place where prayers are made and souls are inspired to change the world. The construction of St. Michael's Church began in late 1751, and as of early 1752, deliveries of lime, sand, and bricks were made, and the foundations of the church walls began. Enslaved workmen were responsible for the erection of scaffolding, the burning of oyster shell for quicklime, the processing of mortar, and the laying of low bearing brick walls and vaults. From October of 1752 to November of 1754, a record was kept of the enslaved workmen on site. These tables not only show the names of the enslaved who constructed St. Michael's, St. Michael's brick walls, columns, steeple, but also the owner, the number of days each worked and how many men were present each day and each month. Within these tally sheets, Charles Pinckney is recorded three times as having enslaved men working onsite at St. Michael's. These men's names are Scipio, George, and Cujo, and they worked a combined total of 334 days. And these enslaved men very likely worked closely with Williams during the construction of the Pinckney Mansion three years earlier. The training that they would have received under the supervision of Williams would have allowed them to effectively execute the work on St. Michael's. Familiar with the architectural details set forth by the request of Pinckney at the mansion, they would have little difficulty understanding the tectonics and the composition of St. Michael's. From newspaper accounts, we know that the freedman Williams is still working in the city after the completion of the church in 1761. It very well could be that Williams himself served as an expert eye and master craftsman, particularly regarding, in regard to the interior woodwork and the extensive timber framing details within the roof and the steeple. The architect of St. Michael's is unknown, but in the manner of the Renaissance, Williams may have embodied the pre Enlightenment master builder. Of equal status to palate evidence. This evidence for this remains to be discovered. In 1751, Williams received the deed for his lots on Ry Street free of mortgage, and he was described as John Williams of St. James Santee Parish, carpenter and Planter. In that same year, Charles Pinckney died from malaria shortly after his return to Charleston from England. Eliza Lucas Pinckney would continue the management of the extensive plantations for a period of time before she would relocate to Hampton Plantation in St. James's Santee Parish. With her daughter and son in law, the 17 in 1793, John Williams announced his intended departure from Charleston in the South Carolina Gazette to where we still have not discovered the recent research in conjunction with documentation efforts by the American College of the Building Arts Architecture Department. It is believed that due to the proximity of geographic location and time. That John Williams very well could have been responsible for the construction of St. James Santee Parish Church, completed in 1790, 1768. This work in conjunction with the American College of the Building Arts has been a part of a studio course that I teach for my junior students in a preservation focused studio. And so we took a trip out to St. James to start documenting this according to HAB standards. And as I was there, I started to learn this information about this place of worship. It's when I learned that Eliza Lucas Pinckney had been here in her later years. And I started to observe some of the woodwork, particularly in the pews. So these are the pew boxes at St. James Santee. And as soon as I saw them, I started to realize that of all the times that I had been to any service at St. Michael's in downtown Charleston. Those pew boxes looked eerily familiar, even to me from the panels, of course, but even the hardware and how the iron hinges were designed. This theory about St. James Santee is very new, but I felt it not robbery to share it with you all today. But essential to the St. Michael's project, as well as to the ThinkND mansion, and as well as possibly St. James Santee was the production of brick. It was the enslaved at plantations along the Cooper River such as Boone Hall and Parnassus Plantation that produced bricks desired throughout the city. These enslaved workers brought with them a tradition of masonry production and building from the West African region along with their knowledge of rice. And this is most evidently seen in the utilitarian structures of plantations. This is a smokehouse at Boone Hall Plantation, and this is a great watercolor rendering of the Slave Street at Mulberry Plantation, which are both Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Charleston County, but this is in Berkeley County, just further up the river. This advanced knowledge of race and humanity was handed down for centuries and accompanied the captured West African civil war country of South Carolina. As with the buildings they created, Charleston bricks became associated with the white man who owned. The brickyards that produced the brick and not the laborers who made the bricks. Much of the masonry of this time bears the maker's marks. following the Civil War, really in this situation, right in the middle of the Civil War, in 1862, a school was founded For newly freed slaves. And it was called the Penn School. Established by Laura Towne and Ellen Murray on St. Helena, Island, South Carolina, on land that was purchased from a gentleman named Hastings Gant, who was a freedman and an entrepreneur. A private charity composed mostly of Quaker abolitionists in Philadelphia supported Penn during its early years. But after the demise of the state's reconstruction regime, the school struggled financially. And two northern white educational philanthropists took over leadership of the school at the turn of the century. And they revised the curriculum to follow what we know as the Hampton Tuskegee model of black education. In addition to training students in masonry and carpentry and the domestic arts, Penn would also train midwives and offer relief to St. Helena Island residents suffering from economic hardship. Up until the Second World War. And these are some of the more notable buildings of Penn Center. Lathers Hall, which was the boys dormitory, and the Koch Building, which was the Koch Building for the Industrial Arts. I spent time, I've spent a lot of time here this past summer, particularly, with a residency program in conjunction with the University of Georgia. and then working with Innova Architecture, my principal, we were doing a lot of the preservation work there on some of the wood clapper buildings. And so one day, out of curiosity, I took a tape measure and I measured the diameter of the columns, well, the circumference of the columns and did the calculation to find the diameter, of course. And strangely enough, those columns are seven diameters high in the manner of the Tuscan. These people that were living here on St. Helena Island were so remotely removed from anything on the mainland. There was not a bridge on, onto St. Helena Island until 1960. So anything that was coming over, whether it was Building materials or new information was coveted to come by boat and it didn't come very often because the same reason that they relocated from the original place in Charleston to the new place in 1680 was because the mosquitoes were so bad. If you spend any time in the Lowcountry in the summer, you know how bad the mosquitos can be. You go onto a sea island and you'll really start to get a good taste of it. The other one's the Cope building. I started making all these observations and in my mind started making all of these connections to these buildings that I had experienced. The Emory Campbell Cafeteria as well and Frizzell Hall. But what's amazing about these buildings, these four buildings at Penn Center, is that they're all constructed out of tabby. Tabby's origins is African, but it's still unstudied extensively. The word is African with an Arabic background. There's evidence that North African Moors brought a predecessor form of tabby to Spain when they invaded the peninsula. But there's also evidence that the Iberian use is earlier and that it spread south, from there it spread south to Morocco. A form of tabby is still used in Morocco today and some tabby structures still survive in Spain. Although both, in both instances, the aggregate here. is granite and not oyster shell. It is likely that the 16th century Spanish explorers first brought tabby which appears as tabby or tapis or tapi or tapia to the coast of Florida in the 16th century. Tapia is Spanish for mud wall and Arabic tabby. ThinkND means a mixture of mortar and lime, but in fact, the mortar, and the mortar, for African tablin, what used was chink, which was used for the earliest cabins in this area as well as a mixture of Spanish moss and mud. But the labor intensive process, for tabby, originally before emancipation would have depended upon slave labor, but due to the Hampton Tuskegee model at Penn Center, it depended upon Student labor, which arguably could probably be about the same thing. But what had to happen is that the oyster shell had to be collected into heaps. It had to then be crushed into, and crushed. And then burned into quicklime. The quicklime was then slated and combined with more shells, sand, and water. It would then be poured or tamped into wooden forms called cradles. It would be built up in layer in a similar manner to rammed earth. Tabby was used in place of bricks, which could not be made locally because of the absence of clay on the sea island. Tabby was used like concrete for floors, foundations, columns, roofs. Besides replacing bricks, it was also used as, oyster shell mortar or burnt shell mortar. And so this great documentation of the buildings being built at Penn Center. With the formworks, you see the students who had collected the Tabby shows and then poured into forms and then working their way up slowly, building their own campus. But of course, there is a somewhat of an ancient connection to the legacy of Tabby. But there's also a legacy of other earthen construction that's been executed by enslaved people in South Carolina, particularly the Church of the Holy Cross in Stateburg, which is a completely rammed earth building. And it has its connections back to West Africa. They, at Penn Center, they would implore all of the, all the building trades in the education of their students, all hearkening back to the legacy that was brought to them by their ancestors. So this Hampton Tuskegee model that Penn Center adopted was, of course, was revolutionized by Booker T. Washington. Who was approached, who was approached to, be the first leader of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881. He developed the college from a group of, from the ground up, and he enlisted students in the construction of buildings from classrooms to dormitories. The work of the college was considered fundamental to the students larger education. They maintained a large farm to essentially be self supporting, rearing animals and cultivating needed produce. Washington continued to expand the school, and he attained national promise for his Atlanta address, which attracted the attention of politicians and the public. He built this nationwide network of, of supporters in many black communities with ministers and educators, businessmen comprising his court. And he actually took the efforts to cooperate with other white people at the time, enlisting their support, the support of wealthy philanthropists. Washington asserted that the surest way for blacks to gain equal rights, equal social rights was to demonstrate industry, thrift, intelligence, and property. And the first way that he did this was by hiring Robert Robinson Taylor. Taylor was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. His father was a carpenter and businessman who was born into slavery, but he was freed in 1847. his mother was the daughter of a freedman even prior to the Civil War. He left home to go to MIT in 1888, where he studied architecture, and during his course of study at MIT, he talked in person on more than one occasion with Booker T. Washington. What Washington had in mind was for Taylor to develop the industrial program at Tuskegee, and to plan and direct the construction of new buildings for the campus. At the MIT faculty meeting on May 26th, 1892, Taylor was one of the, was one of 12 students in Course 4, the architecture program, recommended for a degree. The class of 1880, 1892 was the largest on record since MIT's founding. And Taylor then offered, offered, accepted the Tuskegee offer in the fall or winter, not really sure, of 1880, of 1892. Taylor's first project, building project on the new Tuskegee Institute campus was Thrasher Hall. Which was known as the Science Hall, and it was constructed entirely by students using bricks made also by students under Taylor's supervision. The project epitomized Washington's philosophy of instilling in Tuskegee students the descendants of formerly enslaved, Former enslaved Africans the value and dignity of physical labor and provide an example to the world of the capabilities of African Americans in the building trades and they underscored the larger potential of the manual training curricula being developed at Tuskegee, a number of other buildings followed including the original Tuskegee Chapel finish in 1898. Then, Tompkins Hall, White Hall, the Oaks, which served as the home of the University of the President of the Institute, this Carnegie Library, the Milbank Building, and James Hall. Taylor served for a period as the Vice Principal of Tuskegee. And then in 1929, under the joint sponsorship of the Phelps Stokes Fund, the Liberian government and the Firestone Rubber Company, he went to Liberia to lay out architectural plans and devise a program and industrial training for the proposed Booker Washington Institute, the Tuskegee of Africa. And what they were doing there was they were training these students in the structural mechanics of masonry, and how to lay masonry, in the production of brick, in the rendering of brick. And strangely, the techniques that they were using still have relevance to the legacy that was born by the enslaved. of West Africa to the South. And we know, of course, that there's ancient connections to this very these very methods as well. And of course, in the Tuskegee Trades, they were learning architecture and timber framing and plaster work. it's really interesting when you visit this campus in Alabama, if you've never been, you should make it a point to go. because it's an absolutely magical place to be able to experience and see these buildings firsthand that were built by these students. But Tuskegee is not only, not only are they producing these great craftspeople, but they are also producing architects. Wallace Augustus Rayfield, was the second formally educated, practicing African American architect in the United States. Rayfield was born in Macon, Georgia, and then he moved to Washington, D. C. after the death of his mother. He was an apprentice at an architecture firm while attending Howard University. He then completed a graduate certificate from Pratt Institute before earning his bachelor's degree in architecture from Columbia in 1899. Upon graduation, he was recruited by Washington to the directorship of the Architectural and Mechanical Drawing Department at Tuskegee in Alabama. 1907, Rayfield opened a professional office in Tuskegee from which he sold mail order plans nationwide. He also advertised branch offices in Birmingham, Montgomery, Mobile, and Talladega, and Atlanta, Savannah, Macon, and Augusta. He left Tuskegee Institute and moved to Birmingham in 1908 to focus on his young practice. And he was elected the superintending architect for the Freedmen's Aid Society and the connectional architect of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. And a few of his structures that he was responsible for as architect. Of one, this one, if you may recall. Early in the morning of Sunday, September 15th, 1963, four members of the United Clans of America planted 19 sticks of dynamite with a timed delay under the steps of the eastern side of the 16th Street Baptist Church, close to the basement. At approximately 10 to 22 AM, an anonymous man phoned the church. The anonymous caller simply said the words three minutes before terminating the call. Less than one minute later, the bomb exploded and five children were in the basement at the time of the explosion in a restroom stall close, restroom close to the stairwell. Changing into their choir robes in preparation for a sermon entitled, A Rock That Will Not Roll. The explosion blew a hole measuring seven feet in diameter in the church rear wall and a crater five feet wide and two feet deep in the ladies basement lounge. Destroying the rear steps of the church and blowing out a passing motor, a pla blowing a passing motorist out of his car. All but one of the church's stained glass windows were destroyed in the explosion, the soul stained glass window, largely undamaged by the explosion depicted Christ leading a group of young children, four girls, Addie May Collins, age 14, Carol Denise McNair, age 11, Carol Roseman Robertson, age 14, and Cynthia Dion Wesley, age 14, were killed in the attack. Another product of Tuskegee was William Sidney Pittman. Born in Montgomery, Alabama to a formerly enslaved laundress into a prominent white man of the city. At the age of 17, Pittman attended Tuskegee Institute where he completed programs in woodwork and architectural mechanical drawing in 1897. He was awarded a scholarship to attend Drexel Institute in Philadelphia where he completed a five year architecture and mechanical drawing program in only three years. Graduating in 1900, after which he returned to Tuskegee for five years, for the next five years. And he designed a number of buildings at Tuskegee, including the the Collis P. Huntington Memorial Building. In 1907, he married Portia Washington. A daughter of Booker t Washington and the family home that Pitman designed in Fairmont Heights. Fairmont Heights, Maryland was a notable landmark, but Pitman won a federal commission for the Negro building in the Tera, Tera Centennial or the T Centennial Exposition at Jamestown, Virginia in 1907. He also designed the colored Carnegie Library of Houston, built in 1913 as the only, the only library available to African Americans in Houston. He then relocated to Texas, and he helped to build the Pythian Temple, St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church, Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and a whole other string of AME churches. And finally, not a product of Tuskegee, but indeed someone who has been a Very large inspiration to myself was Julian Abel. He was an African American architect and a chief designer in the office of Horace Trumbauer. Abel attended the Quaker run Institute of Colored Youth, which later became Chaney University, where he excelled in mathematics and was chosen to deliver the commencement address. He completed a two year architectural drawing course at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art. He was the first black student admitted to the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. This achievement was all the more noteworthy for the restrictions blacks faced at the university, including not being able to live in dormitories or to dine in the dining halls. On project assigned to pairs of students, he partnered with Louis Massinger. The only Jewish student in the department who also faced discrimination. And this was the beginning of a lifelong friendship between the two. Abel contributed to the design of more than 400 buildings. Including the Whitener Library, a memorial library at Harvard. the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art. and most notable, he was the primary designer of the West Campus at Duke University. Abel's contributions to the TRO buyer firm were great. But the only building for which he claimed authorship during Trumbauer's lifetime was the Duke University Chapel. Following Trumbauer's death in 1938, he co headed the architectural firm and designed additional buildings at Duke as well. But unfortunately, during Abel's lifetime, he was never given credit for his building. luckily, due to sound minds at Duke University, he has now been given full credit for his design. The practicing of hiring out enslaved people to build the great, 18th, to mid 19th century structures reinforces the notion that classical and traditional architecture is not racist or prejudiced discipline of design. Yes, the institution of slavery has left a permanent stain upon American society, but it was through this unfortunate practice that the traditions of continental Africa survived. Just as many aspects of American culture such as music, food, and visual arts, have African American influences, so does architecture. American classicism is not only rooted in the Greco Roman, but also in the richness of the village mindset of the African American community. So as we continue to have these national conversations, as even as we were having in, in, In spring of 2019 about racial and social justice, we must remember that the Vitruvian triad of firmitas, utilitas, and venusitas leads not only, leads us not only in the design of architecture, but also will lead us in the design of a new American society where all men are indeed created equal. How am I on time? So there's always been men made mention about, um. what inflow, what kind of brought this forth, this level of research? You may be wondering, well, how did all of this come about? This is the newly completed International African American Museum in Charleston. I studied these, studied this building before it was a building, of course, studied these plans extensively and came to these conclusions. about designing this building. So that's why I wanted to share this with you. we can certainly start the Q& A process as I flip through these things. This is the proposed design of this building. I've had friends who have visited. I've yet to go to the museum. just don't think it's quite wise for me to go quite yet. Obviously it's all a little bit too fresh for me to go to this museum. but I of course wanted to share the plates of my thesis since I'm here, coming back home for this entire thing. but of course, lots of faculty have already seen this. but, I guess the issue that I had with the museum that it's not exactly contextual, it doesn't really speak Charleston. flat roof, coastal environment. You can start. Interestingly, there's probably maybe some people on here virtually who don't agree with what I'm going to say. interestingly, the opening of the museum was delayed by about six months because of some HVAC issues. Couldn't figure out how to keep the building at a consistent climate. things such as, things such as that idea may have helped contribute to that climate problem. Any questions for me? Are you, and I hope you are, writing a monograph? I am. I am beginning slowly to take on the daunting task of writing a monograph. I have been approached by a publisher from the University of South Carolina Press. about publishing this work. I'll actually be working in, hopefully working in conjunction with Dr. Tiffany Moen of the University of the South. Dr. Moen is the one who has, who really started to uncover this information about John Williams as a craftsperson. when she uncovered it and she just kind of glanced over him buying James Gibbs I told her, whoa, wait a minute. This is actually a very big deal. and so I, I want to be able to work with her on that, but yeah, we're certainly continuing the research. Yes. Were speaking about the bricks, about the middle of the lecture, I would imagine, you showed a series of comparisons with thatched roof housing in, I'm assuming, parts of, West Africa? Yes. and some buildings housing in United States. Could you go back to this? Could you say a little bit more about that comparison? That's okay. So this is, these are the slave cabins at, at a plantation, down in Chatham County, Georgia, right outside of Savannah. And these are the enslaved, homes at Boone Hall Plantation. And it's just looking at the forms. When you look at the forms of this and the materials, and then you look at these modern contemporary build, you know, vernacular buildings in West Africa, I think one of these, one of these is in Liberia and one of them is in Benin. there's virtually zero contact across the Atlantic. With any, especially during, I mean, during the antebellum period, I mean, there's no contact whatsoever. So how is it that these forms and this, these building practices, they're kind of living on, you know, even in this context, I mean, these, this kind of conical. Form and these kind of square with these sort of conical roofs and pyramids. If this is a part of your research that you're spending some time thinking about, combing through the records? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay. It's really fascinating. It's just, it's, of course, it's finding the time to make my way from Charleston to West Africa to be able to study these things directly. but actually one of, one of my former professors, colleague now, a friend of the School of Architecture, Nathaniel Walker actually has been doing some research on this, and what's interesting is that when you, when you study, particularly the iron work of Philip Simmons, and some of his scroll patterns, there are very similar scroll patterns that are found in vernacular buildings on walls as artistic forms, and they're almost identical. You know, one of the great stories that I've, that I remember about Mr. Simmons is that he would include this bird called a Sankofa bird in his ironwork. And someone approached him one day and said, Oh, Mr. Simmons, this is amazing, this is Sankofa bird. And Mr. Simmons had no idea what this person was talking about. He was like, what, Asankofa, what, what are you talking about? But he had this, and this is the direct adinkra symbol he had already in his ironwork. It's like, he had never, Mr. Simmons had, the furthest that he had traveled in his life was to D. C. to the Smithsonian. you know, all these, there's so many really kind of deeply rooted connections that he used that. That can't be explained, especially during the antebellum, because there's, reading and writing is not allowed. So many things that can't be explained. How else would, do they know this information? Thank you. Do you find any shotgun houses in Carolinas? No, we don't. we, so there's something that's similar to them with the Charleston single. So there's, we have a one story Charleston single house called the Friedman's Cottage. but the, the floor plan is completely different from them. And The shotgun cottage is one of those vernacular forms that's, you know, that's particular to, to coastal Louisiana. and I want to be able to start studying those things too, but I have to bite off one, one, one small thing at a time. But no, it, there absolutely, there is, there's connections there. There is. I took you to studios in Alabama. You've never been to Tuskegee. but, there's a lot of amazing architecture in Alabama. There really is. Or remember it is. I remember we, I went to, on that trip from to Tuskegee. I went to Montgomery and then to New Orleans, and then came back through mobile. and I was amazed at the architecture in mobile as well. That's of a similar nature to Charleston, simply because mobile, Mobile was not burned in the Civil War, and you look at cities that survive that have these great architectural records, they were not destroyed during the Civil War, unlike a place like Atlanta, or Columbia, South Carolina, that were torched and pretty much lost all of their, all their building stock at one time. First of all, thank you for an excellent talk. This was very helpful and exciting to even hear the connectivity and understand how deep rooted things are when it comes to classical architecture here in the United States. for that. I took my students last semester to Savannah. And as part of the study, we went to look at the Victorian neighborhood there. And what was interesting to see is There was still craftsmanship that was visible in the woodwork that was done as part of the houses that were built. They were looking, you know, they had that kind of feel and sense of Victorian. There was a lot of innovative and, inventive attitude that came from nothing that was visible in Savannah. And when we asked about it, it comes from the traditions of, African, Symbology and also, artistic work that has been practiced for, centuries in many ways coming back from the, intent of, people that came and brought those five traditions with them. Have you known about this? Do you know anything you could share about it? Or would that be a path you would ever want to go? Because I think your book would be very appealing and interesting for everybody to hear. So I have, I've been able to observe it and I've observed it primarily in churches. you know, one of the, one of the traditions in African American churches, just like really any other religious institution is that, you know, giving your absolute best work. and your talent and your time to, you know, to the building of a church, and to, you know, interior details, especially. And you know, the church that I attend, in Charleston, we, this is well before I was a member of the church, one of our members, he was a, he was a carpenter and he did so much work. I mean, the, like the organ case, for example, he hand carved the organ case and you can see he has his own touches and his own feelings and spins and his own kind of interpretation of forms. and it's absolutely beautiful. And he did that with everything, whether it came. You know, it was something professionally someone was asking for or something for the church. but you see it all over the place and you know, something that's really interesting that I've been able to kind of discover, which I'll show you here. It's particularly at St. Michael's that this entablature impediment, it's all wood. It's not masonry. And so it's it's very similar. of course, you know, Gibbs lays out triglyphs and metaphys the way they're supposed to be, but you see, they just depart. Just enough. okay, they didn't quite, they didn't quite get it all the way, but they figured it out and they did enough of it to make it work and to make it, you know, their own kind of unique, their small touches on things. So it's, it is everywhere. It just takes the time. At least in India, I found out later that craftsmen have their own books. These are secret books. They're not available outside. They go from hand, you know, basically they're handed over for generations and they're never seen in the actual market. There is no libraries or nothing. is, you know, it would be interesting also to know if there was like a hidden, route that was used by craftsmen that was just following these techniques. It's over and it's just not known because it was never sold in the market here. Right. Never documented. the one place that we do know that happens and it still does happen, particularly in the production of sweetgrass baskets. because families, they just, they pass it down from generation to generation. I know of a situation of an older lady who lives actually on St. Helena Island. She went to Penn School growing up, and she's a sweet grass basket, weaver. And, unfortunately, her children have no interest in learning. And because her children have no interest in learning, she has no interest in teaching anyone else. She will, she refuses to be recorded. She refuses to be interviewed about processes or techniques. So when she passes away Her craft will pass away with it. And often times, that, that's exactly what happened. That's what would happen. And at the American College of the Building Arts, we were, you know, post Hurricane Hugo in 1989, we were trying to regain that because we had this massive hurricane to come through to virtually destroy the city, and we had no craftspeople to be able to preserve and to restore the buildings. And we had to begin to fill a void, and we just so happened to be at a right moment where there were enough. of the older craftspeople still alive. That they would then train the next generation, and then we could train the next generation. So, there's a very small amount of hope that we can keep some of these things. Yes. thank you. This was wonderful, Phillip. Curious about any connections you might have found, with Barbados, because certainly that was so key to the founding of Charleston, but also there was so much conversation and movement back and forth between that island and Charleston in the 18th century. Are there connections you're making with your research there? Oh, there is, and that's with the Charleston Signal House. So the Charleston Signal House we know is a direct form from Barbados, and Interestingly enough, enslaved people at the early part of the early portion of the founding of the Carolina Colony, just like the second and third born sons, they're also coming from Barbados. And they have already been there, they've established this place, they've built them, they're also coming here. And they're doing the exact same thing. And what they end up doing there is they have to just start utilizing local resources. And so they just start constructing, all these single houses out of black cypress. And they figured out that a black cypress tree of a certain age resembles, can resemble a dork or a Tuscan column. And they just kind of work with what they have. But at the same time, their work, these, you know, the enslaved, they're doing all, a lot of this work, most of the work, but they're also working with, they're working with, French Huguenots, who were, who try, who are, you know, Coming to Charleston for refuge because Charleston was a relatively tolerant place. you know, There were Jewish people, there were Catholics, there were Germans, there were French Huguenots, there were Irish, so they, there were a lot of people who were there working, you know, the Carolina colony had a relatively, the upper part of a very thriving German population, so there, there are some specialized craft people who are coming from Europe who are doing work and working side by side with enslaved because At that time and age, they are no, they are pretty much the same status, socially to an enslaved person. They cannot own land. They cannot vote. they essentially don't have a voice. they sometimes receive wages, but oftentimes a lot of them are in indentured servitude situations where they're having to work off their labor as well. So they're in a slightly better position, but they're not in a much, much better position. So they're working very closely with the enslaved as well.
Intro:The
Phillip Smith ’19 M.Arch:single house, absolute connection to the Caribbean in terms of the construction, because you have those wonderful connections between West Africa and the Lowcountry. Are there construction methodologies and, and materials and things that show that adaptation as well through, through that linkage? Yes, there is. And I know in, particularly in Barbados, a lot of the early forms that we look at as the, kind of the predecessors to the Charleston single, there, a lot of those are coral limestone. And they're building these things out of coral limestone, and then they realize, okay, coral limestone, but the porches, Which are always, they're pretty much, you know, they're east west oriented on the southern side, which kind of came out, you know, it's okay, of course, it's really hot on this side, we're going to put this porch on this side, and we're going to, the prevailing winds moving east west, and they move east west in Barbados and in Charleston, The porches on these houses in Barbados, they were all wooden porches, and so they already knew how, you know, all the connection points between the wood and the, and the lime, the coral limestone, and they got here, and it was the earliest thing they had was the wood, and so yeah, it's a lot more exploration to come. A lot of people have done some research on it, but there's always another level, another layer to be found. Thank you.