Black architects and designers of the Northwest celebrated in new MOHAI exhibit

On Saturday, a new exhibit will open at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry.

"From the Ground Up: Black Architects and Designers" is a traveling show, originally created for Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. The exhibit has been updated to represent local, Black architects, like Benjamin F. McAdoo Jr., the first Black architect registered in Washington state.

"It's recognizing not just Pacific Northwest, but across the country and across the world, the contributions of Black architects who are innovators," said Hasaan Kirkland, consultant and curator of the exhibit. "And how we live and why we live around these buildings that are these kind of marks across the country about who we are as a people. This exhibit helps to kind of acknowledge the contributions of Black architects."

The exhibit showcases buildings and structures currently in our city, like the the building that formerly housed the African American Academy in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood. The building was designed by the late Black architect Mel Streeter, who lived in Magnolia back in the 1950s and served on Seattle's planning commission from 1989 to 2000.

Walking through the gallery, there are large poster-sized images of structures around Seattle. These images were captured by local photographer Zorn Taylor.

One image, which may not typically come to mind when thinking about architectural buildings and structures, depicts the transit platform at King Street Station.

"This is not even a building," Kirkland said. "This is a structure that's connected to the movements of the future. This is the transit platform. Just to think about how [cool] that is, it's not just about making homes, or making libraries, or churches, or buildings — and not that those aren't significant — but it goes to transit systems, it goes to bridges, it goes to walkways, it goes to wayfinding functions. And to know that Black folks have contributed and left their mark for us to connect to, that means that it's ours too. This is our space as well."

The exhibit also includes picture books and block-building stations for youth. Kirkland said the show is designed to create inspiration for all ages, by illuminating the history surrounding as we exist within cities each day — and a lot of that history is hidden in plain sight.

From the Ground Up: Black Architects and Designers opens at MOHAI on Saturday, Feb. 4.

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