Benjamin McAdoo: A Modernist Architect of Merit
01.15.2021 for ARCADE Magazine
Washington state’s first licensed Black architect fabricated solutions for early modernist low-cost and modular housing, all while fighting for racial equality.
His WWII draft registration card reads: 6’1”, 205 pounds, with dark hair, eyes, and complexion; census records inform that he was a son to an auto mechanic and a music teacher. Historians describe Benjamin F. McAdoo Jr. in simple yet monumental terms: the first Black architect registered in Washington State, and the founder of the first African American-owned architecture practice in Seattle. McAdoo’s influence extended beyond the walls of his modern designs as he established himself as a pillar in the fight for racial inclusion.
The link between one’s skin color and one’s access to housing was apparent to McAdoo during his childhood in Pasadena, California in the 1920s and 30s. Redlining and other racial restrictions confined the McAdoos to a neighborhood reserved for Mexican- and Chinese-American residents—most of whom were renting properties from white homeowners who intentionally relocated to predominantly-white neighborhoods. McAdoo went on to study architecture at the University of Southern California, later transferring to the University of Washington.
After graduating in 1946, McAdoo operated a makeshift architecture practice in the kitchen of his low-income home. He quickly gained regional attention, as well as appropriate office space.
Local writings about McAdoo’s firm span from the late-forties until the mid-sixties. “There’s always something refreshing about a house that has been specially well-suited to the site, designed for the specific desires of the owners and fashioned in the 1949 manner,” asserted Margery R. Phillips of The Seattle Times about McAdoo’s Moorhouse Residence. “It is an interesting and extremely individual house.” She was correct—McAdoo’s early homes, small churches, and remodeling projects were unlike the existing vernacular architecture in Seattle. According to a decade of sporadic writings by Phillips, McAdoo remained an integral player in the blooming of Northwest Modernism. Three of his homes won the “Home of the Month” series, sponsored by the Washington State Chapter of the AIA and The Seattle Times.