| How did you first develop an interest in architecture? |
In the eighth grade there was
an assignment to interview three professionals. Because Roberta was always interested
in art, she decided to interview her neighbor who was an architect.
After the interview she was very excited, and made the decision to become
an architect. There was nothing else at that point she wanted to
pursue except architecture. |
| Did you ever have a mentor in the field who ˇ°showed you the ropesˇ±? If so, who was this? |
Roberta responded to this by
saying that she never really had a mentor in the formal sense, but
there were individuals either classmates, or other architects that
she admired and who helped her along in her goal to becoming an architect.
Max Bond, a highly noted African American architect was one of those
who she greatly admired, and in the informal sense was a mentor. |
| What are some of the major obstacles you faced while a student? A practitioner? What did you do to overcome them? |
Roberta attended two different
institutions as an undergraduate and graduate student. For undergraduate, she attended
Howard University which is a highly recognized Black university. For
her graduate degree she attended Columbia. While attending Howard
university, there was no evident racial discrimination, but there was a
great deal of sexism in existence. The opposite was true of
Columbia, while there was not really any sexism, race was an issue.
At Howard university Roberta won ˇ°Earl Prizeˇ± every year after her first
year even though women were generally told to quit and not invest too
much. Because sexism was an issue, women were not encouraged to go
to lectures, and male professors were not very encouraging to female
architecture students. Something she noticed was that while males
were encouraged to go to lectures, and participate in forums, and women
were usually always serving punch and cookies at the lectures, or were
discouraged from even going. At Columbia however there were very few
minorities. There were some divisions but the climate was not
horrible. There were also some of the professors attitudes also to
deal with. In the workplace being a female African American
architect caused many problems, because of the public perception of being
not only a female, but an African American female architect. |
| Have you ever faced any discrimination from [racism/sexism] as a student or practitioner? If so, what happened and how did you overcome it? |
There was an instance as a professional
in which Roberta was faced with discrimination. She had gone to the site of
one of her projects in which a hospital was going to be built. In
meeting with the clients she was continuously interrupted and
ignored. The clients kept asking her if she was really the
architect, and not an intern working for the architect. She had to give
her background and explain that her degree was in hospital design, and
that she in fact was the architect in charge of the project and not
an intern. She felt very insulted, because had she been a white
male, this never would have happened. To overcome this the only way
for it to be dealt with is for people to put aside their own prejudices,
once you get past that everything will be okay. ˇ°Never admit to an
obstacle, because that makes it that much harder to overcome it, but there
is always a way to overcome obstacles and you must find a
way.ˇ± |
| Compared to the ˇ°typical white male in the field, how satisfied have you been with a) your opportunities for promotion and professional advancement, b) your salary, and c) your level of recognition in the field - both today and in the past? |
African Americans in general
get the short end of the stick when it comes to promotions and salary. In today's
workplace it has everything to do with race, were as in the past it was
more about sex. She discussed how there is only so far that you
can get being an African American in the field of architecture and that
is why so many Black architects start there own firms, to get away from
the eminent racism in the profession. |
| What do you think about the rate at which conditions are improving for women and people of color in architecture? What can be done to make improvements more quickly? |
Roberta said that the conditions
are improving slowly, but if you are waiting it will never be fast
enough. In
terms of work, there are certain politics of each era. There are few
African American architects that have built major or tall buildings
outside of Harlem. Everyone builds in Harlem, but it is very
difficult to get work outside of Harlem. To solve the problem, people have
to be sensitive to the issues and admit that there is a problem - and deal
with it. The only way for this to be dealt with is for African Americans
to be put in a position of power or for those who are receiving the work
in uptown areas to understand to current problems. The mainstream
must be confronted, or things will not change. |
| Based on your experiences, what words of wisdom can you offer to women and people of color in architecture - as students? As professionals? |
Understand that you will face
obstacles, as with any profession, but you will face them and overcome. To make it
easier you need to find people who are out there practicing
architecture. Find out about those who have gone before you, because
it has to be easier today then before. Roberta suggested going to a
NOMA conference because that is where you will find successful African
American architects. Locate those who have been successful in the
profession despite obstacles and take inspiration from their lives. |
| In order to improve the status of women and people of color in the field, what type of information do we need, or what kinds of issues should we be addressing? What do you see as critical research questions that can lead to improvements in the field? |
There must be access to others
is the first thing Roberta discussed. There needs to be a way to get out of the
boundary of racism in general. We have come far, but for
improvements to be made, you must first start with society.
Political push is necessary to help advancement. If African
Americans had more political push they would get more work. Everyone
needs to work together in organizations and firms because it is harder
for a smaller firm to get by because they are isolated. |
| Imagine that at some ideal
point in the future, we have many more women architects and architects of
color, and that their influence is widely felt throughout the
profession. How do you think 1) the profession of architecture and
2) the built environment, as a reflection of the profession, might be
different from what they are today? |
There needs to be more variation
in the field of architecture, because mostly what we see is similar. If the field
was more open, much more would get done. There are people who are
just as creative as the typical white male, but don't ever get a
chance. There is this idea of what a good architect looks like, and
if you don't fit that mold, you won't give their design ideas a chance
because they can't see past the idea of what you are not. It is not
because of out race and gender, it is rather our status and friends, our
environment that makes architecture unique. Just because one has
a different viewpoint doesn't mean it's different because of our race
or gender, you just think differently. |