Focus on Julian Abele

African American architect Julian Abele (pronounced "able") played a key role in the design of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Born in South Philadelphia on April 30, 1881, Abele studied at the Institute for Colored Youth and Brown Preparatory School before completing a two-year course in architectural drawing at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (PMSIA), the progenitor of both the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the University of the Arts.

Abele received his Certificate in Architectural Drawing from PMSIA in the spring of 1898 and then entered the architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania that fall, earning his B.S. degree in 1902. He was the first African American to graduate from the university's architecture program.

According to accounts by Abele’s family members and contemporaries, after graduation, on the recommendation of a dean, esteemed architect Horace Trumbauer sent Abele to Paris to study at the École des Beaux Arts. Although there is no formal record of his attendance, it is likely, given the structure of the École, that he informally attended one of the many ateliers associated with the prestigious institution. Upon his return, he joined the firm of Horace Trumbauer.

By 1909, Abele was the chief designer in the firm of Horace Trumbauer & Associates. He participated in the design of an impressive number of important buildings, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was designed by a team of architects from two firms—Horace Trumbauer & Associates and Zantzinger, Borie, and Medary. In addition to the Museum, Abele worked on The Free Library of Philadelphia, the Widener Library at Harvard University, the chapel and many other buildings of Trinity College in Durham, North Carolina (now Duke University), and the James B. Duke House on Fifth Avenue and 78th Street in New York City (now New York University's Institute of Fine Arts).

After Trumbauer’s death in 1938, Abele came to play a key role in the completion of the Museum. Although the Museum building had opened in 1928, work continued on its interior through the 1940s and 1950s. In 1942, Fiske Kimball, the Museum director who supervised its construction, described Abele as "one of the most sensitive designers anywhere in America." Abele joined the American Institute of Architects in 1942 and became head of the Trumbauer firm.

Abele's role in the firm of Horace Trumbauer was neither a well-kept secret nor a well-publicized fact. It is unclear whether it was Abele's choice to be inconspicuous or whether his obscurity was the product of the racial climate of the times. While reviewing his designs, Abele once remarked, "the shadows are all mine," taking into account his hidden influence and the impact of racism on his career.

Abele died on April 23, 1950, after designing the Allen Administration Building at Duke University, a site he never visited due to segregation. He is considered the first major African American architect in the United States.