Campbell, Wendell Jerome

Impact on the world

After unable to find work at an architecture firm due to racial prejudice despite his degree, Campbell founded his own firm in 1966, then co-founded the National Organization of Minority Architects in 1971 and served as its first president, going on to design or redevelop major projects across multiple American cities and earning the AIA's Whitney M. Young Jr. Award and a Fellowship.

Life & background

Raised in East Chicago, Indiana as the fourth of six children, Campbell served in the U.S. Army in Japan during World War II as a Master Sergeant in a combat engineer regiment building roads and bridges, before returning to study architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology under Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer, graduating in 1957. Unable to find work at an architecture firm because of racial prejudice, he spent a decade on urban renewal projects with the Purdue-Calumet Development Foundation before founding his own firm in 1966, later renamed Campbell Tiu Campbell to recognize partners Domingo Tiu and his daughter Susan. His firm's projects included the DuSable Museum of African American History, the McCormick Place Expansion, restoration of Chicago's Michigan Avenue Draw Bridge, and redevelopment plans for cities including New Orleans, Detroit, and Gary, Indiana. In 1971 he co-founded the National Organization of Minority Architects and served as its first president, going on to receive the American Institute of Architects' Whitney M. Young Jr. Award in 1976 and election as an AIA Fellow in 1979.

Sources

1. NOMA Founder profile; The HistoryMakers; Atomic Ranch