AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTERThe Pittsburgh African American Cultural Center’s mission is to celebrate the contributions of people of African descent to the art, culture and history of Americans with the ultimate focus on the contributions of Western Pennsylvania’s African American community and to offer a forum to educate the public about the richness of the art, culture and history of people of African descent.
 In lieu of draping a building in patterns found in Kente, Akwete or Asho Oke cloth, Johnson & Lee, Ltd. decided to take another tact. We chose to reflect traditional African architectural forms, industrial employment opportunities which lured African Americans from the South, and architectural forms encountered by African Americans when they came to Southwest Pennsylvania. This resulted in using conical forms arranged in the pattern of an African village. We also extended the conical forms through a glass roof membrane to evoke the imagery of the smoke stacks of Pittsburgh’s industrial age. Finally, we felt it was appropriate to restore existing building facades found on the site as an indication of the built forms encountered by African Americans upon their introduction to Pittsburgh.
By merging these different
forms and imagery with state
of the art building technology,
this becomes a fitting architectural
representation of the African
American experience in
Pittsburgh.  |