Firms design South Carolina’s site-specific African American museum
by arslan_ahmed | June 26, 2023 4:56 pm
A collaboration of firms has designed the soon-to-open International African American Museum (IAAM) as a response to its site, Gadsden’s Wharf, South Carolina, the port of arrival for nearly half of all enslaved Africans brought to North America in the 18th and 19th centuries.
IAAM is housed in a building designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Moody Nolan, with landscape design by Hood Design Studio, and exhibition design by Ralph Appelbaum Associates (RAA). The firms worked closely to create architecture and an environment that honors the site’s history, while supporting an array of exhibitions, events, and educational resources.
The building form reflects the guiding principle articulated by its lead designer, the late Henry N. Cobb, who believed the location was paramount. “As the place at which many thousands of Africans from diverse cultures first set foot in North America,” Cobb wrote, “Gadsden’s Wharf is not just the right place to tell this story; it is hallowed ground. Hence the special design challenge of the IAAM: to build on this site without occupying it.”
In service to this aim and the mission of IAAM, the newly completed structure grants primacy to the seascape, landscape, and the memorial. In collaboration with executive architect Moody Nolan, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners designed the 129.8-m (426-ft) long, 84-ft (25.6-m) wide, single-story volume to hover 3.96 m (13 ft) above the ground, supported by 18 cylindrical pillars arranged in two rows. A deliberately contextual response to the highly charged historical site, the long side walls are clad in pale yellow brick (handmade Danish), while the glazed end walls are framed by African sapele wood louvers, directing views to the Atlantic on the east, and downtown Charleston on the west. The supporting columns are clad in traditional oyster-shell tabby, also used as paving in portions of the landscape.
Except for two service cores framing a central skylit stairway, the entire ground plane beneath the building remains open, representing the heart of the site’s collective memory. On the east of this open space, oriented to the harbor and ocean beyond, a shallow reflecting pool signifies the edge of Gadsden’s Wharf as it was at the beginning of the 19th century, the peak of the slave trade. On the west, oriented to Concord Street and Gadsdenborough Park, granite paving demarcates a sheltered gathering place for group activities and performances.
Embracing the entire site, the African Ancestors Memorial Garden, designed by Hood Design Studio, acknowledges the history of Gadsden’s Wharf, drawing inspiration from the low-country landscape and the wide-reaching heritage of the African diaspora.
A series of sub-gardens, nestled within the overarching landscape, celebrates the artistry, craftsmanship, and labor that African Americans have contributed throughout history.
A centerpiece of the garden is an expansive water feature evoking the Atlantic Passage, a tribute to the perilous journeys endured by enslaved Africans. Inspired by the 18th century Brooks map, which shows enslaved individuals packed into the lower decks of a slave ship, the water feature has a dynamic quality, as it gently ebbs and flows, alternately revealing figures beneath the surface and cloaking them with reflections of the sky.
Bordering the water feature is a stainless-steel band that traces the historic line of Gadsden’s Wharf. This band serves not only as a reflective border, but also as a ledger of memory engraved with the names of ports that marked the beginning and end of countless journeys during the transatlantic slave trade.
The design team envisioned the entry sequence as both a destination and transitional space between the landscape and exhibition. Visitors are drawn into the museum through a luminous atrium at the center of the building, moving from shadow to light as they ascend the monumental stair. On the upper level, large windows at both ends offer unobstructed views of the port to the east and the city to the west.
Exhibit designer, RAA, planned the narrative flow of the installations around the architecture, organizing the east side thematically, with an introductory corridor and orientation theater leading to multimedia displays of South Carolina and Gullah Geechee culture, African roots, and the Atlantic world.
The west side features a chronological, interactive gallery called “American Journeys,” juxtaposed with media related to the legacies of slavery and current movements around racial equality and social justice.
The Center for Family History, at the west end of the building, provides a major resource for the study and advancement of African American genealogy, where genealogists and the public can research the museum’s collection of primary sources, documents, and texts.
“The IAAM is more than a mark of architecture, it’s an extraordinary milestone,” says Curt Moody, founder of Moody Nolan. “Having worked for the last 15 years to dream this into being, we are intimately aware of the cultural significance it has for American history. Without this building, this sacred site would have remained unknown, and the stories of our ancestors untold. It’s an honor and a privilege to work on a project that has this kind of tenacity, and we recognize that the opportunity to leave an impression on people around the world, for generations to come, is a rare gift.”
Some of the other project collaborators are the structural engineer, Guy Nordenson and Associates; Arup as the provider of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection engineering (MEP/FP), acoustic consulting, communications infrastructure, security consulting, and lighting design (base building, exterior, landscape); SeamonWhiteside, landscape architect of record; Venue Consulting, as construction cost consultant; the civil engineer, Forsberg Engineering; S&ME as geotechnical & environmental engineer; Bihl Engineering as traffic engineer; CCI as code consultant; and Turner and Brownstone as construction managers.
Source URL: https://www.constructionspecifier.com/firms-design-south-carolinas-site-specific-african-american-museum/