PHOTO | CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY

The work and legacy of Durham architect Philip Freelon, designer of the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts+Culture and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, is on display at the Gantt Center starting Oct. 29.

The Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture will host an exhibition dedicated to its architect.

“Container / Contained: Phil Freelon – Design Strategies for Telling African American Stories” opens Oct. 29 and will remain through Jan. 17, 2022 before traveling to the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh for its February opening.

The exhibit on the Durham designer, who died in 2019 after a battle with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, was created by faculty and students at UNC Charlotte’s School of Architecture.

Freelon spent more than four decades designing public buildings as founder of The Freelon Group and later as design director of Perkins + Will North Carolina.

In addition to the Gantt Center, Freelon designed the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco, Emancipation Park in Houston, and the North Carolina Freedom Park in Raleigh.

“Phil Freelon’s design for the Gantt Center was genius,” center president and CEO David Taylor said. “The building itself tells the story of the once-thriving Brooklyn neighborhood which was razed in the 1960s and serves as an homage to that neighborhood and the resilience of the Black community.”

Freelon designed public spaces with a simple idea: use architecture to help tell the story of and be part of the content within. More than two years of research led by Emily Makas, an architectural history professor and associate director of Charlotte’s School of Architecture, resulted in “Container / Contained” as a demonstration of how buildings and spaces told stories of African American culture and identity. The exhibit reviews Freelon’s work, which includes museums, libraries, cultural centers, and public parks while analyzing connections between forms, materials, and meanings of the projects and communities they celebrate.

"I have been honored to engage in this examination of Phil Freelon's work on architecture and identity and for our architecture students to have the opportunity to learn about his legacy and share it with the community,” Makas said. “A project like this brings together many partners, and we are excited to work with the Gantt Center for the exhibition premiere and related programming.”

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