During his career as chief designer at Philadelphia-based architecture firm Horace Trumbauer, Julian F. Abele designed some of the most prestigious buildings in the United States. Buildings like the Widener Memorial Library at Harvard University, the Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. However, one of Abele's largest projects was Duke University, a school the black architect could not even have attended until 37 years after he designed it due to his race.
James Buchanan Duke, who had used Horace Trumbauer to design houses for him, hired the firm to expand the Duke campus in 1924. As head of design, Abele was responsible for Duke's chapel, library, football stadium, medical school, religion school, hospital, faculty houses, and the university's famed basketball arena Cameron Indoor.
Despite his contributions, Duke remained a whites-only school until 1961, eleven years after Abele's death. And although there are conflicting reports, his great-grandniece, who attended Duke, says that Abele was never able to actually go on the campus and see his work because of Jim Crow laws. This same relative is the one that eventually sent a letter to administrators at Duke and informed them of Abele's contributions.
You can read the whole story and learn more about this incredible architect on Curbed.
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[via Curbed]
