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  • An Interview with Philip G. Freelon
  • Charles Henry Rowell and Philip G. Freelon (bio)

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Grand Entrance Hall.

Rendering by Adjaye Associates (2011).

[End Page 752]

This interview was conducted April 24, 2014, via telephone between Charlotte, NC, and College Station, TX.

ROWELL:

I want to focus this interview on the architecture of the new architectural project on the National Mall in Washington, DC: the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). There were originally three architects working on the project: you in Charlotte, NC, the late J. Max Bond of New York City, and David Adjaye of London, UK, along with your different architectural firms. The three of you are responsible for the design and building of this museum. How did the three of you—very different architects working out of your own distinctive aesthetic sensibilities and architectural philosophies—come together on this major project and, together, realize it? Will you tell us how this happened?

FREELON:

Sure. I would be happy to tell you. It started out as one then two then three and then eventually four and I’ll go through the process of how our team was expanded and why. We have to go back about seven or eight years ago, when it came to my attention that there would be a museum of this sort. I knew from prior experiences that it would take some planning and strategic thinking to position our firm to be successful and to be involved in this very prominent project. So I began attending meetings of the commission that President George W. Bush established in 2001 to explore the possibility of building the museum in DC on the mall. That was before there was a formal governing body for the Museum. The Commission was headed by Dr. Richard Wright and included Cicely Tyson Davis, Hank Aaron, and other prominent African Americans. I began attending the commission meetings to gather information and to try to position my firm for the possibility of working on the museum design. One of my friends and colleagues, Max Bond, was also attending these meetings. At some point, we started talking about teaming up—I don’t remember who initiated the contact but we decided that we would have a better chance at this project if we came together rather than competing against each other. So we made a gentleman’s agreement that we would join forces and align our resources to continue that process of information gathering. We decided that our alliance would be called Freelon Bond and that we would continue to pursue the Museum project together. We made our intentions known to the African American Associations of Museums (AAAM) at their national conference in Washington in 2006. We sponsored a reception and announced that we had formed a team. We wanted to get the word out and about a year later in 2007 the request for proposals (RFP) for the pre-designed and programming of the museum was issued. Freelon Bond put together a proposal as did other firms and teams from across the country and around the world for this preliminary phase of work.

Max’s firm had completed a number of museums and archive facilities and Freelon was known for museum design as well. Freelon had provided a similar scope of work for the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum in [End Page 754] Baltimore. Freelon Bond was short-listed, invited to interview, and was ultimately selected to do the programming and pre-design work for the new museum. That was a fourteen-month process and during that time we demonstrated to the Smithsonian our expertise, skill, and leadership while establishing a good working relationship with Lonnie Bunch, the Museum’s founding Director, and his staff. Toward the end of the programming and pre-design process in the fall of 2008, the Smithsonian announced the international design competition for the actual building design of the Museum. We were careful to make sure that providing the programming and pre-design services would not disqualify the Freelon Bond team from participating in the design competition.

ROWELL...

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