Five More Black-Designed Modernist Buildings Secure Getty Funding

The Getty Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund announced this month that five more buildings will receive funding from their Conserving Black Modernism grant program. Launched in 2022, the program supports the preservation of historic modernist buildings designed by Black architects and designers—structures that embody an underrecognized chapter in modernist architectural history.

"Our goal is to help tell a more complete story of the trailblazing contributions of Black architects to the modern movement," says Getty Foundation director Joan Weinstein in a press release. Beyond structural upkeep, the program funds community engagement, educational programming, and training of those who steward these sites.

Among the five new honorees are a brutalist landmark in Oregon, a building by Illinois’s first licensed Black architect, and an Atlanta college’s administration building. Included in the 20 previously funded properties are a City Hall in L.A. county designed by the city’s oldest Black architectural firm, Kennard Design Group, and a D.C. theater named after the first Black Shakespearean lead, Ira Aldridge, designed by Hilyard Robinson and Paul R. Williams. The initiative aims to ensure that these architects’ legacies—and the communities their designs helped shape—aren’t lost to time.

Together, the projects supported by Conserving Black Modernism form a cross-country map of Black modernist achievement—from brutalism to art moderne, academic campuses to religious sanctuaries—that is helping write a more inclusive story of American architecture. Here’s what to know about the five newly funded sites and why they’re worth saving.

Founders Church of Religious Science, Los Angeles, CA

This 1960 church was designed by Paul R. Williams, the first Black member of the American Institute of Architects. Its reinforced concrete structure, topped with a steel-framed dome and concrete screen, embodies the teachings of congregation founder Dr. Ernest Holmes, whose emphasis on unity and positivity inspired the elliptical design. Inside, Williams incorporated closed-circuit television so attendees could watch services from overflow spaces, which was innovative at the time.

ITC Administration Building, Atlanta, GA

A pivotal work by Edward C. Miller, Georgia’s first licensed Black architect, the ITC administration building is the oldest structure on the campus of the International Theological Center, a graduate school of theology serving historically Black Christian seminaries. Completed in 1961, the building’s modern brick facade reflects an enduring presence in the city’s architectural landscape.

First Church of Deliverance, Chicago, IL

Originally a hat factory, this South Side building became a beacon of architectural experimentation when Walter T. Bailey, Illinois’s first licensed Black architect, gave it a bold renovation in 1939. His art moderne style introduced colorful terra-cotta tiles, streamlined glass blocks, and continuous lines that challenged conventional notions of what a church could look like. Inside, the low ceiling and acoustical plaster were tailored for radio broadcasts of gospel music.

McKenzie Hall, Eugene, OR

Designed by DeNorval Unthank Jr., the first Black graduate of the University of Oregon’s architecture program and later a professor, McKenzie Hall is a brutalist landmark. Built in 1968 with exposed concrete and geometric brick, the building exemplifies Unthank’s contributions to Oregon’s civic architecture.

Vassar College’s 2500 New Hackensack Building, Poughkeepsie, NY

Jeh Vincent Johnson, cofounder of the National Organization of Minority Architects and member of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s National Commission on Urban Problems, designed this sleek academic building at Vassar in 1963. Minimalist in style, the brick, steel, and glass structure embodies architectural modernism.

Top photo courtesy of J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10).

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The Black Designers Who Were Largely Overlooked by History