By Mary Jo Hoag, Class of 2007
You don’t know the architect David Sharpe? Let me introduce you!
David Sharpe has more than a 70-year history as a student and professor of architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and as a studio architect with Skidmore Owings and Merrill (SOM). Presently he is an emeritus professor at IIT, and he still works with Master’s and PhD students. He is among the first African American architects to study as well as teach at IIT and practice at SOM. On two separate occasions, I was privileged to sit with David and talk with him about his extraordinary life in architecture.
Born in Decaturville, Tennessee in 1928, David’s parents were well educated. They were high school teachers who had attended Tennessee State College, and they instilled in David a life-long love of learning. In search of paid work in the heart of the Great Depression (1932), the family moved to Louisville, Kentucky. In Tennessee, his parents accepted livestock and grain as payment for teaching, but they needed a steady income that they couldn’t find in Tennessee.
As a young man, it was clear to David’s teachers that he had a talent for drawing; he was interested in architecture and engineering as well. A teacher who had attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama encouraged David to apply to Tuskegee to study mechanical drawing. Tuskegee University is a prestigious, historically black university established by Booker T. Washington in 1881. David applied for and received a full scholarship to study at Tuskegee as part of the ROTC program.
While at Tuskegee, students were employed to make plans and drawings for the maintenance and care of the Institute’s buildings, including replacing walls and repairing infrastructure. David laughed when he recounted that he even helped keep the buildings in good repair by doing carpentry and plumbing work. The students supplied much needed labor while also getting hands-on experience in practical work and design.
During his last year of college, and because he wanted to study architecture so much, Tuskegee arranged an internship for David with Charr Architects in Philadelphia, established by David Charr in 1922. The experience at Charr confirmed David’s desire to be an architect. It was in Philadelphia that he met his wife. Actually, he met his wife’s family before he met her, and they acted as matchmakers for the couple. David graduated from Tuskegee in 1950 with a degree in Commercial Industries, as Tuskegee did not offer a degree in architecture at that time.
Just as David began his studies at Tuskegee and right after WWII (1946), the Tuskegee Air Base was closed. This was also the time the Army Air Corps transitioned to the United States Air Force. As his studies at Tuskegee were coming to an end, it was clear that the Korean War was just beginning. As many of his friends were being drafted into the army, David chose to enlist in the Air Force. He served during the Korean War from 1950 to 1954. His stint overseas was mostly spent working in Japan on air communications. His job was to design installations of ground control systems all over the Far East for the Air Force and allies.
David finished basic training at Lackland AFB in Texas in 1951. He then traveled via the great train Zephyr to Richmond, California, then deployed to Japan. During an eight-hour layover in Chicago he decided to take a Gray Line sightseeing tour of the city. As the bus went north on Lake Shore Drive (LSD), the guide pointed to and talked about the new state of the art water plant, the Jardine Water Treatment Plant that was almost complete at the time.
Part 2 will cover David’s life and career in Chicago