International African American Museum | MD MD

Sited at the port of arrival for nearly half of all enslaved Africans brought to North America, the design serves and celebrates the museum’s mission by granting primacy to the seascape on which it fronts, the landscapes that frame it, and the memorial for which it provides shelter.

The museum is housed in a one-story building volume measuring 84 feet wide, 426 feet long, and 24 feet high, raised 13 feet above the ground on a double row of cylindrical columns. The underside of the museum shelters a large open space that is the heart of the site’s collective memory. On the eastern section of this outdoor space, oriented to the harbor and ocean beyond, a shallow reflecting pool signifies the edge of Gadsden’s Wharf as it was at the beginning of the nineteenth century, at the peak of the slave trade.

The materials reflect a careful contextual response to a highly charged historical site. On its north and south sides, the building is clad in a warm brick, while the east and west ends are enclosed in clear glass shaded by angled wooden louvers. The structure’s supporting columns are clad in an oystershell tabby, a material also used as paving in portions of the ground plane.

“As the place where thousands of Africans from diverse cultures first set foot in North America, Gadsden’s Wharf is not just the right place to tell this story; it is hallowed ground,” said the lead designer for the project, Henry N. Cobb. “The special design challenge of the museum was to build on this site without occupying it.”

SITE
On the site of the former Gadsden’s Wharf on the Cooper River, overlooking Charleston Harbor

COMPONENTS
41,800 ft2 / 3,900 m2 gross area; exhibit area, administrative offices, museum shop

CLIENT
International African American Museum

PCF&P SERVICES
Architecture; exterior envelope; interior design of public spaces

SUSTAINABILITY
Designed for LEED certification

AWARDS

Project of the Year Architect's Newspaper, 2023

Best of Design Award, Cultural Projects Architect's Newspaper, 2023

Best of Design Award, Landscape Architecture Architect's Newspaper, 2023

Apollo Award Nominee Apollo Magazine, 2023