July 23, 2025
The funds will assist in promoting community engagement and heighten public awareness of the Black designers and geniuses behind them.
The Getty Foundation, in collaboration with the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, is stepping in with “critical funding” to help save historic modern buildings created by Black architects and designers, according to a press release.
Through a yearly grant program called the “Conserving Black Modernism” initiative, the grants are utilized to uplift the legacies of Black architects—both past and present—by preserving their unrecognized work and highlighting the stories behind each creation. With Getty’s support, sites like a former hat factory transformed into Chicago’s First Church of Deliverance, designed by the first licensed Black architect in Illinois, Walter T. Bailey, will have their preservation plans supported.
In addition, the grants will help promote community engagement and increase public awareness of the Black designers and geniuses behind them.
“Each year, Conserving Black Modernism has expanded the number of architects recognized through the initiative, and we’re excited to include five new designers whose innovative buildings enriched communities from coast to coast,” Getty Foundation director Joan Weinstein said.
In addition to Bailey, the 2025 Conserving Black Modernism Grantees include the ITC Administration Building in Atlanta, designed by Georgia’s first licensed Black architect, Edward C. Miller, in 1961. The theology graduate school, which features a modern brick facade, is situated near five predominantly Black denominational Christian seminaries and is the oldest building on campus.
The Founders Church of Religious Science, designed by the first Black member of the American Institute of Architects, Paul R. Williams, is a roughly 20,000-square-foot concrete building in Los Angeles with a steel-framed dome and concrete screen. Funding for the site, listed in the National Register in 2020, will consist of an accessibility plan to encourage more efficient use of the landmark and promote community engagement.
The other grant awardees are McKenzie Hall in Eugene, Oregon, and Vassar College’s 2500 New Hackensack building in Poughkeepsie, New York, in addition to 24 others being funded by The Action Fund.
“The Conserving Black Modernism program is ensuring the historic contributions Black designers have made to this field are celebrated and can inspire current and future generations,” said Executive Director Brent Leggs said.
“This year’s cohort includes sites by architectural giants, and names the world may be learning about for the first time. I’m thrilled that through our partnering with the Getty, the African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund is helping to ensure their legacy and support the communities that are stewarding these sites today.”
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