HBCU Howard University recently announced a new development about the new home of their fine arts college dedicated to the late Chadwick Boseman.
The university just revealed that they’ve chosen the architecture firms that will help design the Center for Fine Arts and Communications, the place where the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts will be relocated to.
To lead their project, Howard University has chosen KGD, a Washington D.C.-based firm, and Moody Nolan, an architecture firm with bases all over the country, to work together to design the new establishment.
Led by architect Curtis Moody, Moody Nolan is considered to be the largest Black-owned architecture firm. Opened in 1982 in Ohio by Moody and a graduate architect student, the firm has expanded to cities nationwide, such as Houston, Chicago, Dallas and Washington D.C., with their partnership with engineering firm Howard E. Nolan & Associates.
Throughout their career, the firm has been praised for their work. Just last year, Moody Nolan was chosen as the winner of the Architecture Firm Award, an American Institute of Architects award that’s considered as the highest honor there is.
“For the KGD | Moody Nolan team, this represents a transcendent design opportunity,” said the project’s design executive and a partner with Moody Nolan, Renauld Deandre Mitchell, in a statement.“The Center for Fine Arts and Communications will endure as a threshold building for the campus and catalyze a new era of innovation and creative expression for future Bison.”
The plan for the College of Fine Arts to be renamed in honor of actor Chadwick Boseman was first announced back in 2021 just a few weeks after actor and Howard University graduate Phylicia Rashad was named as the dean.
Boseman was also a Howard University graduate.
Eventually graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in directing in 2000, he was known around campus during his school years for his efforts to garner support for the College of Fine Arts.
Through student protests and continued contact with the HBCU after graduating, Boseman fought for funding for the college, eventually lobbying for the creation of the new College of Fine Arts alongside other graduates with successful results in 2018.
“Chad fought to preserve the College of Fine Arts during his matriculation at Howard and remained dedicated to the fight throughout his career, and he would be overjoyed by this development,” said Boseman’s family in a statement. “His time at Howard University helped shape both the man and the artist that he became, committed to truth, integrity, and a determination to transform the world through the power of storytelling.”
