In honor of Duke’s Centennial, The Chronicle is highlighting pivotal figures and events throughout the University’s history. Here, we take a look at Julian Abele:
Duke’s West Campus is best known for its dramatic Gothic architecture and the grand chapel that sits at the heart of its central quad. Yet its creator, Black architect Julian Abele, wasn’t fully recognized for his contribution to the University’s design until decades after his death.
Abele — who may have never stepped foot on the campus he designed in the then-segregated South — was finally memorialized by the University in 2016 with the renaming of West Campus’ main quad to “Abele Quad.”
In Duke’s Centennial year, The Chronicle looks back on the story of the man responsible for crafting the now-iconic campus.
Background
Abele was born April 21, 1881, to an accomplished family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
His great uncle, Absalom Jones, founded the first mutual aid association for Black Americans in 1787 — the Free African Society — alongside Richard Allen, later becoming the first Black man to be ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Charles Abele, Julian’s father, was born a freedman and fought for emancipation in the Civil War, soon discharged after being wounded. Charles Jr., Julian’s oldest brother who went by “Bun,” was among the first Black graduates of Hahnemann Medical College in 1883.
Julian himself followed his siblings in attending the Institute for Colored Youth, founded in 1873 as the first public preparatory school for Black children. Abele was mentored by the principal of his school, Fanny Copin, who encouraged him to pursue architecture and a higher education.
Although educational opportunities were limited for Black people at the time, in 1897, Abele became the first Black person to receive a Certificate of Architectural Drawing at the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art.
He enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Architecture the next year and was elected president of the student architectural society in his senior year. In 1902, he became only the third Black person in the country to earn a bachelor’s degree in architecture and the first Black graduate at UPenn, though the segregationist policies of the time prevented him from participating in his commencement ceremony.
“Those behind in the race of life must run faster or forever remain behind,” Abele once said in regards to his educational pursuits. At the time, he was the “most formally educated architect” in the country.
It was at UPenn’s two-year program where Abele’s admiration of French architectural styles manifested, as the school was one of the first in the nation to incorporate teachings from the renowned École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His later work on the Free Library and Museum of Art in Philadelphia are reflections of his admiration for Ange-Jacques Gabriel, chief architect for French King Louis XV.
After graduating, Abele acquired a Certificate of Completion in Architectural Design from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1903. He went on to be hired by Horace Trumbauer in 1906, where he gained much of his architectural experience. However, Abele received little credit for his work, since company policy dictated designs would be signed in the name of the firm, not the individual architect.
“The lines are all Mr. Trumbauer’s, but the shadows are all mine,” Abele said. Nevertheless, Abele’s son — Julian Jr. — later characterized the relationship between his father and Trumbauer as one marked by “a great deal of respect.”
Abele took over the firm alongside fellow architect William Frank after Trumbauer’s death in 1938, finally able to sign his own name on his designs. He remained at the firm until his death in 1950.
Duke designs
Abele’s relationship with Duke began after Trumbauer’s firm was commissioned to design tobacco magnate James B. Duke’s Fifth Avenue home in New York City. The company later drafted an expansion to Duke’s property in Newport, Rhode Island, and drew up plans for a New Jersey estate that was never developed.
In 1924, James B. Duke established the Duke Indenture of Trust, donating $40 million to Trinity College and prompting the school’s transition to Duke University. Trumbauer’s firm secured the contract to design the University’s new campus, in a development lauded by local headlines as the “Largest Building Permit in the History of the South.”
Abele designed many of West Campus’ most iconic facilities, including the Chapel, Rubenstein Library, Wallace Wade Stadium, Cameron Indoor Stadium, the School of Medicine, Duke Hospital and the Divinity School. He was also responsible for redesigning East Campus, then the Woman’s College, in a Georgian architectural style and for drafting the plans for Baldwin Auditorium.
Abele designed a total of 11 Georgian-style buildings on East Campus and 38 Gothic-style buildings on West Campus.
The road to recognition
Due to segregation policies in the Jim Crow South, Abele may never have visited the final manifestations of his designs at Duke — the matter remains unclear because many of the architectural firm’s records were destroyed after the business closed in 1968.
After much of the construction was complete, the firm consulted a professor at Vanderbilt University for input on the statues to be placed at the Chapel entrance. He recommended the company choose “three men of prominence in the South” — former President Thomas Jefferson, Confederate General Robert E. Lee and poet Sidney Lanier, who served in the Confederate Army. None of the men had any connection to the University, and no credit was given at the time to the Black architect who designed the campus.
Lee’s statue was defaced in 2017 and later removed by the University. Then-Mayor of Durham Steve Schewel, Trinity ‘73 and Graduate School ‘82, called the removal of Lee’s statue “a site of conscience in the ongoing struggle for racial equality.”
Many years later, Abele’s role in designing the University’s campus was brought to light, after his great grand-niece, Susan Cook, Trinity ‘88, wrote a letter to The Chronicle during the 1986 student protests against South African apartheid.
“He was a victim of apartheid in this country,” Cook wrote in her letter, one of many student mobilizations that contributed to the Duke Board of Trustees ultimately voting in May 1986 to divest from companies profiting from business in segregated South Africa.
In 2016, a Duke Bass Connections team investigated how the University’s history is told to prospective students and families touring the school. They found that tour guides rarely mentioned Abele and his contribution to Duke — even after Abele Quad was named after him earlier that year. The team concluded by calling on Duke leadership to “acknowledge and examine those times when unjust decisions were made.”
“Future generations of students, staff and faculty must be able to see themselves in both the line and shadow of Julian F. Abele’s Quadrangle,” the team wrote in the report.
The University now honors Abele with a portrait of the architect that originally hung in the foyer of the Allen Building — the first of a Black person to occupy the space. It now hangs in the Gothic Reading Room of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, a building he designed.
In addition to the plaque in the center of Abele Quad honoring its designer, Abele’s name was etched into a cornerstone of the Chapel to honor his contribution to the iconic structure. Duke also annually distributes awards in Abele’s name to Black community members who make significant contributions to Duke and Durham.
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Aseel Ibrahim is a Trinity sophomore and an associate news editor for the news department.
Zoe Kolenovsky is a Trinity junior and news editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.