Norma Merrick Sklarek,
Black Female Architect
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Norma Merrick Sklarek was born in 1928. She is an
African-American architect and businesswoman.
From New York City she graduated from Barnard College (part of Columbia
University) with a degree in architecture in 1950. Slarek became the
first African-American woman to be licensed as an architect in the
United States with certification in New York State in 1954 and in
California in 1962. She was the first African-American woman director of
architecture at Gruen and Associates in Los Angeles. In 1966, she was
the first woman to be elected Fellow of the American Institute of
Architects.
Some twenty years later, in 1985, she became the first African-American
woman architect to form her own architectural firm: Siegel, Sklarek,
Diamond. At the time, this was the largest woman-owned and mostly
woman-staffed architectural firm. Among Sklarek's designs are the City
Hall in San Bernardino, California, the Fox Plaza in San Francisco,
Terminal One at the Los Angeles International Airport and the U.S.
Embassy in Tokyo. From 1989 to 1992, Sklarek was a principal at The
Jerde Partnership.
There she was in charge of project management and review of the
functional and technological aspects of projects. Norma Sklarek is now
semi-retired serving as Chair of the AIA National Ethics Council. She
conducts classes for the architectural building design and site
licensing exams, and is a guest lecturer. In her honor, Howard
University offers the Norma Merrick Sklarek Architectural Scholarship
Award.
