Architects: Norma Merrick Sklarek

Norma Merrick Sklarek (1926-2012) was an African American architect. Known as the "Rosa Parks of Architecture," she fought for her buildings and was a pioneering African American female architect in the field. 

For Further Reading:

• Norma Merrick Sklarek
• How Norma Merrick Sklarek Paved the Way for Black Women Architects
• Pioneering African American Architect was 85

This month, we’re talking about Architects. These women held fast to their visions for better futures, found potential in negative space, and built their creations from the ground up.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, I'm Sarah Shleid, a producer here at Wonder Media Network.
I'm so excited to be guest hosting today's episode of Romanica.
This month, we're talking about architects. These women held fast
to their visions for better futures, found potential in negative space,
and built their creations from the ground up. Today we're

(00:21):
talking about the woman known as the Rosa Parks of architecture.
Please welcome Norma Sklarek. Norma was born on April fifteenth,
nineteen twenty six, in Harlem, New York. Her parents immigrated
to the city from Trinidad. Her father was a doctor
and her mother was a seamstress. As a teenager, Norma

(00:43):
attended the prestigious Hunter College High School. She excelled at
math and science, as well as fine arts. Outside of school,
she enjoyed fishing, house painting, and carpentry. Seeing his daughter's
gifts in both stem and art, Norma's father encouraged her
to apply for architecture school. In order to do so,
Norma spent a year studying liberal arts at Barnard College.

(01:06):
After earning all of her prerequisites, she was admitted to
the Columbia School of architecture. Architecture school was challenging. Norma
felt isolated from her classmates, many of whom were older
than her and had more degrees under their belts. She
also commuted to school, which meant she was often finishing
assignments on a rocking train car with a notebook in

(01:27):
her lap, or late at night. Once she had finally
made it home, but Norman didn't give up. In nineteen
fifty she graduated from Columbia, one of only two women
and the only black person in her class. After graduating,
Norma had a hard time finding work. She was rejected
by nineteen different firms. They weren't hiring women or African Americans,

(01:51):
and I didn't know which it was, Norma later said.
Eager for work, she took a job as a junior
drafts person at the City of New York's Department of
Public Works, but Norma was itching to get back to
the world of architecture, so in nineteen fifty four, she
took the Architecture Licensing Examination, a four day long series
of tests and past This made her the first licensed

(02:14):
black woman architect in the state of New York. This
status earned her a job at an architectural firm, but
Norma was only given to meaning tasks like designing bathroom layouts. Luckily,
Norma was soon offered a job at a different firm,
Skidmore Owings and Merrill. The firm was struggling to build

(02:34):
a sixty story building over a subway line in New
York City. Norma studied the engineering, mechanical and electrical drawings
for the building, and soon her senior coworkers were asking
her for advice. Able to manage difficult projects on tight deadlines,
she increasingly gained more responsibility outside of that role. Norma
also taught night classes at New York City Community College

(02:57):
while also raising two children. Norma had married and divorced twice,
and her mother took care of her kids while she worked.
In nineteen fifty nine, she became the first black woman
to be a member of the American Institute of Architects.
The next year, Norma moved across the country and took
a new job at Grewin Associates in Los Angeles to

(03:17):
be closer to one of her sons. She quickly noticed
that she was treated differently due to her race. Norma
didn't own a car, so she got a ride each
morning from a white male coworker. The coworker was always late,
meaning Norma was always late. Her boss reprimanded her for this,
but never reprimanded the coworker. Knowing her status at work

(03:39):
was fragile, Norma decided to buy a car so that
she would always be on time. Soon, Norma became the
firm's director of architecture. Her job was less designing and
more project management. She brought ideas on paper into reality.
Norma calculated the labor and equipment costs, prepared contracts, translated

(03:59):
to disease concepts into construction documents, and issued instructions to the contractor.
She was in charge of several major projects, such as
California Mart Box Plaza, Pacific Design Center, San Bernardino City Hall,
and the US Embassy in Tokyo. Norma's work was guided
by her sense of ethics. She once said, architecture should

(04:21):
be working on improving the environment of people in their homes,
in their places of work, and their places of recreation.
It should be functional and pleasant, not just in the
image of the ego of the architect. Norma worked at
Gruin Associates for nearly two decades, then in nineteen eighty
she became a project director at Welton Beckett Associates, where

(04:42):
she was trusted with a huge assignment. Los Angeles had
been selected to host the nineteen eighty four Summer Olympics,
but the city had a problem. Its airport wasn't equipped
to handle the influx of tourists the games would bring.
Norma was in charge of the creation of Terminal IE
at Los Angeles International Airport. It was a fifty million

(05:05):
dollar project, and she succeeded with flying colors. That same year,
Norma was elected to the College of Fellows of the
American Institute of Architects, the first black woman to receive
such an honor. One of her coworkers was quoted in
the La Times saying, you didn't joke around with Norma.
She was the one who got the job done on

(05:25):
time and with excellence, and who then went home at
five point thirty to pursue her other interests. One of
those other interests was gardening. She maintained a garden of
two hundred orchids. Every spring, when they bloomed, Norma would
host a garden party. In nineteen eighty five, she married
doctor Cornelius Welch, her fourth husband, That same year, Norma

(05:48):
became a founding partner of the all women architecture firm
Siegel Sclorac Diamond, but she only stayed for a few years.
The firm was unable to pull in large scale projects
and Norma missed the time challenge they brought, so she
became principal of project management for the Jared Partnership, where
she worked on the iconic Mall of America in Minneapolis.

(06:11):
In nineteen ninety two, Norma retired from the charity partnership
and turned her focus away from firm work. She lectured
at many universities and took on mentorship roles, coaching young
men and women for the state licensing exam. She also
presented her architecture expertise as a member of several professional
boards and committees, and was even director of the University

(06:32):
of Southern California Architects Guild and a director of the
Los Angeles American Institute of Architects. In two thousand and eight,
the American Institute of Architects awarded Norma with the Whitney M.
Young Junior Award. It recognizes those who embody the profession's
responsibility to address social issues on February sixth, twenty twelve,

(06:54):
Norma passed away in her home in Pacific Palisades, California.
She was eighty five years old. Her husband through one
last orchid party in her memory. All month, we're talking
about architects. For more information, find us on Facebook and
Instagram at Womanica Podcast Special Thanks to Jenny and Liz
Kaplan for having me as a guest host. Talk to

(07:16):
you tomorrow.