Philip Goodwin Freelon (March 26, 1953 – July 9, 2019) was an American architect. He was best known for leading the design team (with

J. Max Bond Jr. J. Max Bond Jr. (1935 – February 18, 2009) was an American architect. He developed an interest in architecture based on experiences ranging from viewing a staircase at a dormitory at the Tuskegee Institute to views of North African construct ...

Davis Brody Bond Davis Brody Bond is an American architectural firm headquartered in New York City, New York, with additional offices in Washington, DC and São Paulo, Brazil. The firm is named for Lewis Davis, Samuel Brody, and J. Max Bond Jr. and is le ...

, and David Adjaye) of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture. Some of his other projects include the Center for Civil & Human Rights, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture and the

Museum of the African Diaspora The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) is a contemporary art museum in San Francisco, California. MoAD holds exhibitions and presents artists exclusively of the African diaspora, one of only a few museums of its kind in the United States. Locate ...

. Freelon was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (and the recipient of their Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture), and a LEED (

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction ...

) Accredited Professional. In 2012, President Barack Obama appointed Freelon to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. Freelon was married to six-time

Grammy The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

nominated jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon.

Early life and education

Freelon was a member of the 230th graduating class of Central High School in Philadelphia. Following graduation from

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universit ...

's College of Design with a Bachelor of Environmental Design (Architecture) and top design honors, he went on to earn his Master of Architecture degree from MIT in 1977.

Career

Freelon served as an adjunct professor at the College of Design,

and has been a visiting

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

at Harvard University, MIT, the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Utah, the California College of the Arts, Kent State University ( Florence Italy, program),

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, among others. In 1989, Freelon was the recipient of the

Loeb Fellowship Loeb or Löb may refer to: People * Loeb (surname), including a list of people surnamed Loeb or Löb * Löb Nevakhovich (between 1776 and 1778–1831), Russian writer * Löb Strauß, birth name of Levi Strauss (1829–1902), German-born American ...

and spent a year of independent study at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Freelon was also a Professor of the Practice at MIT in the School of Architecture and Planning.

The Freelon Group

Philip Freelon founded The Freelon Group in 1990. Since then, The Freelon Group has expanded to a sixty-member architectural firm located in the

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States, occupying in North Carolina and hosting more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. The facility is named for its location relative to the three surrounding cities ...

area of North Carolina. The Freelon Group offers specialized design expertise in the areas of Museum/Cultural Center, Higher Education and Science/Technology facilities. The firm has received over twenty-five regional, state and local AIA design awards including AIA North Carolina’s Outstanding Firm Award in 2001. Between 2006 and 2007, Freelon's designs were honored with seven AIA North Carolina design awards in those two years. In 2008, The Freelon Group was recognized by Contract Magazine as The Designer of the Year. In 2009, along with partners

(of

) and David Adjaye (of Adjaye Associates), Freelon was selected by unanimous decision to design the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. The Museum has five floors above ground and four below. It houses a cafe, educational spaces, exhibition halls and galleries as well as a theater. In March 2014, The Freelon Group announced a planned acquisition by the global architectural design firm Perkins + Will. Following the close of the transaction, Freelon joined Perkins + Will’s board of directors and became the managing and design director of the firm’s North Carolina practice.

Awards and recognition

* Designer of the Year in ''Contract'' magazine, 2008 * First prize in the PPG Furniture Design Competition * AIA Thomas Jefferson Award for public architecture, 2009 * AIA North Carolina’s Gold Medal, 2010 * Design Guild Award, College of Design at NC State University, 2012 * U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, appointed 2012 * Fellow of the American Institute of Architects * Kea Distinguished Professor of Architecture at the University of Maryland, 2013

Legacy

Freelon's papers are housed at

Libraries' Special Collections Research Center. In honor of his contributions to the architectural field, the Harvard Graduate School of Design created the

Phil Freelon Fellowship Fund Phil may refer to: * Phil (given name), a shortened version of masculine and feminine names * Phill, a given name also spelled "Phil" * Phil, Kentucky, United States * ''Phil'' (film), a 2019 film * -phil-, a lexical fragment, used as a root term ...

. The fund "will provide financial aid to students attending the GSD with the intent to expand academic opportunities for African American and other under-represented architecture and design students." In 2017, inaugural the Phil Freelon Fellowship was awarded to Aria Griffin.

Personal life

Freelon was the grandson of the

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

painter and educator

Allan Randall Freelon Allan Randall Freelon Sr. (September 2, 1895 – August 6, 1960), a native of Philadelphia, US, was an African American artist, educator and civil rights activist. He is best known as an African American Impressionist-style painter during the time ...

. He was married to singer Nnenna Freelon, with whom he had three children: Deen, Maya, and Pierce. In 2016, Freelon was diagnosed with

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

. He died on July 9, 2019, in

Durham, North Carolina Durham ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County, North Carolina, Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County, North Carolina, Orange County and Wake County, North Carol ...

at the age of 66.

References

External links

Guide to the Phil Freelon Oral History 2017 May 8

MIT faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Freelon, Philip 1952 births 2019 deaths 20th-century American architects 21st-century American architects African-American architects Architects from Philadelphia Central High School (Philadelphia) alumni Neurological disease deaths in North Carolina Deaths from motor neuron disease Hampton University alumni Harvard University staff MIT School of Architecture and Planning alumni MIT School of Architecture and Planning faculty North Carolina State University alumni North Carolina State University faculty University of Maryland, College Park faculty University of Utah faculty 20th-century African-American artists 21st-century African-American artists