When was langston terrace built

The housing complex was conceived of and built for aspiring and upwardly mobile African American families.

The rectangular site is organized around a central green with buildings containing 2, 3, and 4 stories following the terraced topography. The terraced site provided an opportunity to arrange the different building heights for optimal views inward and outward to the central green space, situated at the highest point looking out over the complex.

The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Skip to main content. Sort by Relevancy Title. Oberlander Prize. It was going to be a low-rent housing project in northeast Washington, and it would be named in honor of John Mercer Langston….

The red mud surrounding the concrete walks had not been covered with black soil and grass seed, and the holes … for young trees were filled with rainwater.

But it still looked beautiful to me. Today this large-scale approach to subsidized government housing is often seen by sociologists and thoughtful public officials as another form of social and economic segregation.

The two architects believed Langston Terrace would " Harvard Design Magazine. Strict budget restrictions encouraged Robinson and Williams to be creative and use readily available materials such as pre-cast concrete components. Robinson graduated from Columbia's School of Architecture, afterward traveling extensively in Europe, where he was inspired by experimental new housing developments of the time.

Robinson participated in surveys for early New Deal programs, which led to his commission for Langston Terrace in His design followed avant-garde European ideas concerning suburban habitations within a dense urban environment.

Architectural critic Lewis Mumford, who saw the model exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in , praised the high standard of the complex's exterior design. The fourteen housing blocks are a mix of row houses and apartments arranged in a U-shape around a common green. The buildings cover only 20 percent of the acre site and vary in height from two to four stories.

Executed by sculptor Dan Olney, the cycle depicts Langston leading Black farm laborers to industrial jobs in cities. The residential complex also features five large reinforced-concrete sculptures that adorn the paved playground.

On the interior, the residences featured three to six rooms with two-inch plaster partition walls; floors were originally covered with linoleum over reinforced concrete.

Common hallways in the apartment building had glazed tile on all walls and exposed metal stair units leading to roof exit ports. The heating plant and maintenance shop building were located at the southwestern corner of the community. Large and fanciful frog, walrus, hippo, and horse sculptures enhance the playground. These sculptures were fondly remembered by Eloise Little Greenfield, who moved to Langston Terrace on her ninth birthday and went on to become an author of children's books: "They were friends to climb on or to lean against, or to gather around in the evening.

You could sit on the frog's head and look out over the city at the tall trees and rooftops. Langston Terrace Dwellings welcomed its first residents in It was named for John Mercer Langston, the abolitionist and U. Its success helped to spur passage of the national Housing Act. And while it did not solve all of the problems of the poor, it provided families selected from a pool of hopeful applicants with decent, affordable housing. As Greenfield described it:. Skip to main content.