This last Spring of 2024, Professor Nathaniel Walker, Ph.D., taught a very special elective class called Architecture of Memory. Students who took this course were challenged with designing a monument intended to commemorate the tireless efforts of Harriet Tubman, the famous American abolitionist who liberated hundreds of enslaved people before and during the Civil War. These designs spent a few weeks on display in Miller Exhibition, and will be continued at the Wailing Wails in the center of Crough Center for the duration of the summer (come visit!).
Commemorative architecture can be found all around the world. Places like Ethiopia, Japan, India, Guatemala, Italy, and the United Kingdom were among the locations studied by the eleven students in the class. Professor Walker gave special focus to, “the ways in which stories about slavery and emancipation have been encoded into our cities and landscapes.”
He continued: “Considering obelisks and arches, benches and gardens, students asked questions such as – what is the difference between a monument and a memorial? – and – why do people feel the need to mark the landscape for their descendants? Working together with the Freedom House Museum, the DC Preservation League, the White House Historical Association, and the Library of Congress, our students toured sites and studied archival materials central to these important stories.”
When deciding site locations for this monument, Professor Walker turned to the Smithsonian Cultural Expansion Project, which is a plan that was proposed initially in March of 2023 by six former CUA students. Andrea Hopkins, Sam Merklein, Michael Njo, Casey Nardo, Juan Soto, and Sebastian VanDerbeck designed a new version of the National Mall that allowed space for the continuous planning and design of museums and monuments by the Smithsonian Institution.
The eleven designs are intended to be part of this new vision for the Smithsonian.
Student Designers included Chris Castrogiovanni, Trace Chitwood, Hunter Dawiczyk, Mbina Fordey, Samantha Mahoney, Mike Mulligan, Carla Portillo, Ryan Saidi, Juan Soto, Jacinta Uhalla, and Anthony Webb.
Exhibition Design was led by Sally Caithness, Katie Chmielewski, Lorenzo DeAlmeida, Timothy Smith, Jonathan Taylor, and Nathaniel R. Walker, with decorative elements drawn from the possessions of Harriet Tubman now held by the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC.
We offer Special Thanks to the tour guides, archivists, and jury members who elevated our work: Audrey Davis and Lauren Gleason at the Freedom House Museum, Shae Corey and Zachary Burt of the DC Preservation League, Joan Stahl and Tricia Wedderburn of the Catholic University of America, and Mark Ferguson and Lorenzo DeAlmeida of our own School of Architecture and Planning. We also thank those responsible for the Cultural Expansion, especially Andrea Hopkins, Sam Merklein, Michael Njo, Casey Nardo, Juan Soto, and Sebastian VanDerbeck.
Take a sneak peek at this beautiful work on display. (Video by Katie Chmielewski).