Archinect: A Conversation with Curtis Moody on What It Means to Help Shape a Future for Black Architects

From an interview with Archinect: “We went with the firm to meet with the Board of Regents of the school, and the entire board consisted of all white males. The only other person of color in that meeting other than my team, was a representative from the university, who was a Black female.

As we presented the project, someone from the table asked me, “Mr. Moody, did you really do all of these projects?” I answered them truthfully and said, “Yes – we designed them” and I had the papers to back up my response. But that was the attitude. They didn’t see us in a leading design role. Unfortunately, firms like mine are often designated as support firms. But that’s where you aim to make strides to change that. And we’ve been fortunate over the years in helping to dispel the myth because we have the history, capacity, and expertise to be in a prime role which is not common as of yet for many minority firms.

For all of us in this field, especially for African American architects, there is still this belief that we’re risks to clients. You’ll be faced with situations where you’ll always have all these counterparts who are able to show their years of work and success. And for minority architects, that can be a challenge to go up against.”