In 2022, The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and The Getty Foundation first announced a new initiative to preserve historic modern architecture by Black architects and designers through a $3.1 million grant program: Conserving Black Modernism. “We must address the invisibility of generations of Black architects whose architectural genius, creativity and ingenuity helped shape our national understanding of modernism,” said Brent Leggs, executive director of the Action Fund and senior vice president of the National Trust. “With Getty, the Action Fund will further demonstrate the power of historic preservation as a tool for increased recognition, interpretation, and protection of the physical sites representing Black achievement.” The initiative is an extension of the Getty Foundation’s “Keeping It Modern” initiative and its 17th grant to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

An initial round of eight awardees was announced in 2023. In July, eight more endangered sites were announced for 2024 and will receive crucial funding. Two sites that received grants are located in Buffalo, NY. Both buildings are by architect Robert T. Coles (1929–2020), the first African American Chancellor of the American Institute of Architects. The first building is John F. Kennedy Community Center (1963), designed by Coles as his thesis project at MIT. Funding will support a comprehensive preservation plan. The second building is the Robert T. Coles House, which was designed and completed in 1961. Coles’s house and studio is composed of prefabricated units set back in a garden and courtyard. The grants will support a Historic Structures Report, conservation plan, and a reuse and feasibility study.

Read the full press release to see the six other sites that have received funding. A detailed listing can be read here.

“Eight Endangered Buildings Designed by Black Architects Awarded Getty Funding,” Getty.edu, July, 18, 2024.