Georgia Louise Harris Brown (June 12, 1918 – September 21, 1999), is considered to be the second African American woman to become a licensed architect in the United States.
She was also the first black woman to earn a degree in architecture from the
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. T ...
. She was also the only black member of the Chicago chapter of
Alpha Alpha Gamma (female architects and allied women professionals).
Early life and education
Brown was born on June 12, 1918, in
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeast Kansas, in the Central U ...
, to Carl Collins and Georgia Watkins, and was a middle child of five children. Her father was a shipping clerk and her mother was a school teacher who also studied classical music.
Brown showed an artistic and mechanical aptitude at an early age: she worked on cars and farm equipment with her older brother and was interested in painting.
She went to Seaman High School and went to
Washburn University
Washburn University (WU) is a public university in Topeka, Kansas, United States. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as professional programs in law and business. Washburn has 550 faculty members, who teach more than 6,100 ...
between 1936 and 1937.
In 1938, she moved to Chicago and enrolled in classes at the Armour Institute of Technology, later known as the
Illinois Institute of Technology
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to 1890, the present name was adopted upon the merger of the Armour Institute and Lewis Institute in 1940. The university has prog ...
and studied under
Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ( ; ; born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies; March 27, 1886August 17, 1969) was a German-American architect. He was commonly referred to as Mies, his surname. Along with Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Frank Lloyd ...
.
From 1940, she attended the University of Kansas and received her architecture degree in 1944, the first black woman do so from the university.
In 1941, she married James A. Brown; they divorced in 1952.
Career
Brown started working in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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for
Kenneth Roderick O'Neal from 1945 to 1949.
She became a licensed architect on July 19, 1949, and began to work as an architect and engineer for Frank J. Kornacker & Associates that same year
by which time she had two children.
She was responsible for structural calculations on the apartments on 860 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. While at Kornacker's 8-person firm, she attended evening civil engineering classes and moonlighted.
She worked in Chicago until 1953, when she left for
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
.
One of her reasons for leaving the United States was because "opportunities for advancement were limited by her race" and that in Brazil, there would be fewer racial boundaries to her success.
Brown learned to speak Portuguese by studying with a friend, and permanently moved to
São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...
by 1954.
For part of 1954, she worked for Charles Bosworth, but later opened her own interior design firm, Escandia Ltda.
In Brazil, Brown worked on several significant buildings and projects. She was the project manager and designer for a large complex in
Osasco
Osasco () is a municipality in São Paulo State, Brazil, located in the Greater São Paulo and ranking 5th in population among São Paulo municipalities. According to the IBGE 2015, Osasco currently has the 9th highest gross domestic product in B ...
and later another owned by Pfizer Pharmaceutical Corporation in
Guarulhos.
She also designed a
Jeep plant in San Bernardo and a shipping facility for
Siemens.
She also designed an airport for
Krupp.
Other highlights included the 376,740 square foot
Kodak
The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
Brasileire Comerico film factory in
São Jose dos Campos.
She also designed over a dozen personal homes from 1971-1985 for wealthy Brazilians.
In 1995, Brown moved to Washington, D.C., where she retired and spent her remaining years as a volunteer youth mentor at St. Luke's Episcopal Church.
After cancer surgery in 1999, she went into an unexpected coma which lasted two weeks until her death.
See also
*
African-American architects
African-American architects are those in the architectural profession who are members of the African diaspora in the United States.
Their work in the more distant past was often overlooked or outright erased from the historical records due to ...
References
External links
Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Georgia Louise Harris Brown
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Georgia Louise Harris
1918 births
1999 deaths
American women architects
African-American architects
20th-century American architects
People from Topeka, Kansas
University of Kansas alumni
African-American Episcopalians
20th-century American Episcopalians
20th-century African-American women
20th-century African-American artists
20th-century women engineers
African-American engineers
Women engineers