NYSID’s Work to Emphasize the Legacy of Black Designers
In honor of Black History Month, the New York School of Interior Design is previewing updates to its undergraduate design history curriculum, which will place a greater emphasis on diversity and inclusivity.
As part of a broader curriculum refresh, these changes aim to highlight the contributions of designers from historically marginalized groups, ensuring the study of design history reflects a broader range of voices. The refresh will reflect the recommendations of NYSID's DEI Commission which convened from 2020-21, a group of NYSID Board members, staff, faculty, and students interested in ensuring that NYSID maintains its inclusive community, as well as advice from NYSID's Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Mackenzie Carr and support from President David Sprouls. The overall update will emphasize human-centered design, accessibility, inclusivity and diversity, technology, and sustainability.
Check out this peek into the history curriculum, which celebrates several trailblazing designers of the African Diaspora who will be at the core of the new history education.
Curriculum Preview
Faculty members Kelly Konrad, Anne Regan, and Warren Ashworth are revising the current history curriculum with a focus on diverse designers that goes beyond surface-level representation, aiming to provide students with a deeper understanding of the significant innovations from designers located all over the world.
They have shared some of the notable designers who are being incorporated into the curriculum:
Julian Francis Abele (1881-1950), a prominent Black architect, was chief designer of the large and celebrated architectural Philadelphia firm of Horace Trumbauer, most known for its influential work in the Beaux-arts style. Among the many commissions over which Abele exerted creative control and influence are the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the James B. Duke Mansion in New York City (a short walk from NYSID), and the campus of Duke University in North Carolina.
Paul Revere Williams (1894-1980) was the first African American member and Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. He is most celebrated for his domestic, commercial, and civic architecture in and around Los Angeles, including The Beverly Hills Hotel and the Los Angeles County Courthouse.
Althea McNish (1924-2020) was the first designer of African-Caribbean heritage to attain international recognition. A Trinidadian, she studied graphic art in London and found her greatest success as a textile designer. Her fabric designs, informed by the colors and forms of the Caribbean, provided post-WWII British design with a highly sought-after and unprecedented vibrancy and vitality.
Julian Francis Abele
Photo by unidentified photographer / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
Paul Revere Williams
Photo by unknown author / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
Althea McNish
Photo by Derek Tamea / Wikimedia Commons / Fair Use
This preview demonstrates how even innovative designers with major contributions have been erased from traditional design history.
Konrad shares the importance of this update, “It is essential that, as design historians and educators, we pursue and share as complete a history of interior design as possible. A history that excludes the work of Black architects, designers, artists, and theorists is necessarily incomplete.”
Along with the update, NYSID is actively incorporating new courses that offer diverse perspectives. This semester, faculty member Sebastian Grant is teaching the design history course Material Culture of the African Diaspora, which will cover Ancient Africa to contemporary designers.
He says, “This curriculum opens a place of discussion for a topic rarely represented in art and design. Most explorations in Black and African art are usually relegated to minor mentions or vague overview, however, this class will put art and design of the African Diaspora right at the center of the conversation, allowing a space to thoroughly discover the wonderful variety of work produced by such creative minds!”
Based on the success of that course, there may be further options to cover more detailed topics surrounding art and design in Black Diaspora culture.
The goal of this is not only for students to better understand art and design history from Africa and the Diaspora, but to recognize the many forms of creativity within the subject.
Konrad says, “We hope that through this exposure to a wider and richer variety of design histories, our students will be more equipped to think and to create with greater intention and more freedom.”
Looking Ahead
As the curriculum is still in the works, there are no definite dates, but we anticipate offering Design History 1, the first course in the new three-part sequence in the fall of 2025, with Design History 2 and 3 to follow in the spring and summer of 2026.