During my two-month visiting senior fellowship, I focused on writing and research tasks for “Rendered Visible: The Black Architectural Imagination.” This forthcoming publication highlights the visual production of Black architects working in the United States during the 20th and 21st centuries. In addition to drawings by registered architects, such as Julian Francis Abele (1881–1950) and Paul R. Williams (1894–1980), the publication includes images by architectural designers and individuals trained in architectural visualization. The goal of the publication is to bring together an array of visual materials, methods, experiments, and expressions that an architectural professional may embrace to illustrate their thinking and imagination. Conceptualized to highlight the creativity at the root of architectural practices, “Rendered Visible” invites audiences to consider the kinds of imagery Black architects have produced and how this body of material contributes to the study of Black visual culture. The project also examines architectural visualizations developed for Black architects or for projects centering Black communities, such as Soul City. Juxtaposing architects’ drawings, hand-painted watercolors, commissioned renderings, conceptual sketches, technical studies, and computer-generated images, the publication offers new vistas into architectural representation and prompts new thinking about Black architects’ roles as visual storytellers. 

Featuring up to 100 full-page image plates, the book balances its visual heft with the voices of architectural scholars and practitioners. In addition to my contributions as project editor and lead author, the book features scholarly essays by Charles L. Davis II and Daisy-O’lice Williams, as well as contributions by other authors, including sidebar essays, extended captions, and a moderated conversation among architects. 

Building upon my prior research and project outreach, I spent my fellowship identifying and selecting images for “Rendered Visible.” For archives and universities with collections by Black architects, I worked closely with librarians and archivists to request reference images from their holdings. For architects in current practice, we discussed and reviewed images that could provide insight into their visual languages and communication styles. Because “Rendered Visible” is not focused on architects’ finished, built projects, but on the architectural imagination and visualization processes, the selected drawings and renderings reveal more about architectural creativity and modes of expression than about Black contributions to the built environment. This is a point I had to share regularly with those who helped provide access to the visual materials that interested me, as my approach differs from researchers who might seek photographs to document an architect’s work. As I emphasized, in its breadth, “Rendered Visible” captures not only the worlds that Black architects inhabited and designed for, but also the worlds they recorded in travel sketches and envisioned through speculative renderings. 

During my fellowship, I was able to engage with the advisory committee for “Rendered Visible,” who had previously received the book’s three scholarly essays for review and comment. Based on their feedback, I revised the structure of my lead essay, titled “Figuratively Speaking: The Visual Impact of Black Figures in Architectural Renderings.” I also began drafting the book’s introduction, informed by resources about architectural drawing from the National Gallery of Art Library. By the end of my residency at the Center, I had selected over 100 images to be used in the book, pending licensing permissions. I also received and reviewed most of the ancillary texts from the book’s contributors, and invited and confirmed an esteemed scholar to contribute the book’s foreword. 

Another major accomplishment was settling upon five thematic sections that will organize the book’s visual contents. My office at the Center positively contributed to this work, offering me space to spread out images, pin up and move drawings across sections, and visually explore their technical and graphic attributes for resonances. When fellows or other visitors stopped by my office, I was able to succinctly present an overview of my project and solicit feedback about the organizing rubrics and images under consideration. Often impromptu, these sessions were beneficial for keeping up the project’s momentum; as each new listener and viewer engaged the materials from their own perspective, they asked questions that I, as project lead, had to consider.

In sum, my fellowship offered focused time to engage with image selections, to learn what questions I should anticipate and answer for readers, and to remember that this publication is one volume—but in charting new trajectories for exploration, it can signal toward the multitudes of what remains to be seen and said about the Black architectural imagination.

National Museum of African American History and Culture
Beinecke Visiting Senior Fellow, March–April 2026

Michelle Joan Wilkinson returned to her position as supervisory curator of architecture and design at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Her project, “Rendered Visible: The Black Architectural Imagination,” has an expected publication date of September 2027.