International African American Museum

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.

A grand stair ascends through a skylit atrium to the main level of the museum, 18 feet above the ground with views overlooking the water through eastern balconies. This interior space provides ample flexibility for the arrangement of programmed spaces.