Design History Decolonized

Dr. Wu Lien-Tuh Wu Lien-Tuh was born in Penang, Malaya, a British colony at the time. His father was an immigrant from China, and his mother also had a Chinese background. At age 17, Wu began studying medicine at Emmanuel College at the University of Cambridge. He was the first person of Chinese descent to graduate from Cambridge with a medical degree. He continued to study transmissible diseases at the School of Tropical Medicine in Liverpool, England, and at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. Wu returned to Malaya in 1903 where he married, worked as a physician, and promoted social and educational reforms. He and his family moved to China in 1907. The Great Manchurian Plague In 1910, an extremely deadly epidemic quickly spread throughout northeastern China, an area which functioned as a crossroads between several nations. The outbreak, which had a mortality rate greater than 95 percent, caused widespread international concern. The Chinese government sent Doctor Wu to the aff

Born in 1924 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, Althea McNish grew up instinctively drawn to painting. Establishing herself as a serious artist even as a teen (her first work exhibited when she was sixteen), she intermingled with prominent artists in the Trinidad and Tobago Arts Society. She later worked as a cartographer and illustrator for the British government, before moving to London with her parents in 1950. In London, she rejected a scholarship to study at the Architectural Association and instead took a course on commercial arts at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts (now the London College of Communication). It was here that she first developed a passion for screen-printing, a foundation for her later work into textile design. In the mid-1950s she enrolled in evening classes at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, where her instructor suggested she work in textiles by applying her print-making skills there.  Gaining a scholarship at the Royal College of Arts, she switch

Zelda Wynn Valdes was an extremely successful Black fashion and costume designer. She was born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where she began teaching herself to sew by studying the work of her grandmother's seamstress. In a 1994 interview with The New York Times, Valdes recalls a time where she designed a dress for her grandmother, and that when she asked her grandmother if she could, she responded by saying, "Daughter, you can't sew for me. I'm too tall and too big," but she did anyways and the dress was a perfect fit. After graduating high school, her family moved to White Plains, New York, where she worked at her uncle's tailoring shop, and later at an upscale boutique, where she became the boutiques first black sales clerk and tailor.  In 1948 at age fourty-seven, Valdes opened her own boutique, called Chez Zelda. She is recognized as being the first Black designer to open her own shop, which was the first Black-owned business on Broadway. She designed el

Eddie Opera is a renowned designer who began his own design firm, the Map Office, and went on to be the first black partner to join Pentagram. Opera was born in 1972 in Wandsworth, London during the time that the Labour Party was in office. Because the government struggled with serious economic issues, money was scarce and the British were fearful of aspects of their life being taken away- such as education and health services. Despite this fend-for-yourself mentality, Opara’s mother taught him the value of collaboration, sharing what you do and have as a person, in addition to having a purpose aside from earning money. His mother, a nurse, and father, working in the advertisement industry, were extremely hard workers who pushed Opara and his siblings to have a similar dedication. Eddie Opara attended the London College of Printing and then Yale University, where he received his MFA for graphic design. From there, he began as a designer at ATG and Imaginary Forces, and then went on

Paul R. Williams at Work 1929 Paul R. Williams started his own career building homes in the L.A. area in the early 1920s, credited by many for establishing what is known as the classic Hollywood style in L.A. homes. He was also the first Black person to become a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1923, to be inducted as a fellow in 1957. Paul R. Williams’ parents moved from Memphis to a small L.A. neighborhood surrounded by orange grove to recover from tuberculosis, which ultimately left him orphaned at four years old.  He was taught in a school without other Black students or faculty.  There isn’t much information about what motivated Williams to be an architect, as he didn't seem to have any architects in his life or in his social circle, but he did have a natural inclination for drawing. His high school guidance counselor advised against his pursuit of architecture saying, “ He should not try to be an architect. He should be a doctor or a lawyer because Black peop

American architect Julian Abele was born in 1881, the youngest of eight in a high-achieving family that long been a “fixture” of Philadelphia’s Black aristocracy (Smithsonian). As a child, Abele attended school at the Institute for Colored Youth, where he was chosen to deliver a commencement address on the role of art in African-American life. After studying at Brown Preparatory School and the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, Abele enrolled in the architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania. The University of Pennsylvania program emphasized the classical methods then in fashion at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Abele embraced these techniques; his designs grew to rely heavily on Renaissance, Greek and Roman traditions while also working to harmonize with surrounding structures: a typical approach from the Beaux-Arts movement. During his senior year at the university, Abele—who had nicknamed himself “Willing and Able” by this point—was elected President of the Stude