Laura Blokker and Andrew Liles
2020 Richard L. Blinder Award
Transformative Preservation: Reclaiming African American Spaces Left Behind by School Desegregation
This project will examine the potential to reclaim the legacy of African American educational excellence and community pride through preservation and design innovation.Across the state of Louisiana –as in other Southern states –sit many long-vacant school plants that tell the story of African American education in the first half of the twentieth century. These once thriving educational facilities are embodied energy waiting for a twenty-first century life.
Image: St. Matthew High School, Melrose, Louisiana