The African Ancestors Garden by Walter Hood with Mark Robbins

Award-winning interdisciplinary designer Walter Hood launches The African Ancestors Garden, documenting the International African American Museum’s landscape design by Hood Design Studio and illuminating its mission and historic site. In conversation with architect and design advocate Mark Robbins, followed by a signing.

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The African Ancestors Garden is the first book to be published in conjunction with the International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, South Carolina. The museum’s landscape design by Hood Design Studio, led by award-winning Walter Hood, exemplifies the museum’s mission to reflect on its location at Gadsden’s Wharf, the point at which nearly half of all enslaved Africans arrived in North America.

With contributions by figures critical to the realization of the International African American Museum, this significant book presents the intensive site research and concepts that went into the distinct spaces at the museum, including an infinity reflecting pool and an ethnobotanical showcase of African plants brought to North America though that landing. Hood’s design response to these historic grounds addresses memory, tragedy, and culture, a moving homage to the living Charleston community and the African diaspora at large.

Hood Design Studio, led by MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant-winner Walter Hood, is at the forefront of the expanding field of social activism through design, and this book allows us a detailed overview of the conceptualization and creation of a remarkable and deeply meaningful landscape, proposing a way of designing public spaces and cultural institutions that embody the African American experience.

Walter J. Hood, a multidisciplinary designer from Charlotte, NC, is globally recognized for his contributions in art, landscape architecture, urbanism, and research. Founding Hood Design Studio in Oakland, CA in 1992, he now leads as its creative director. Walter’s academic journey began at North Carolina A&T State University in architectural engineering. He then transitioned to their pioneering landscape architecture program, graduating in its first class in 1981. Further studies led him to the University of California, Berkeley. His passion for landscape and urbanism emerges from its broad, democratic scope, allowing experiences beyond architectural constraints. Infusing African American cultural arts into his philosophy, he established a unique voice, reshaping spaces to reflect contemporary needs without erasing their history. A professor at UC Berkeley and former Harvard educator, Walter penned “Black Landscapes Matter” and has received accolades such as the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2021 Architectural League’s President’s Medal award, and 2024 Vincent Scully Prize.

Photo: Marella Caraciollo

Mark Robbins is an educator, artist, architect and longtime advocate for the arts and design, and served as president and CEO of the American Academy in Rome from 2014 to 2023. Previously, Robbins was executive director of the International Center of Photography in New York and from 2004 to 2012 served as dean and professor at Syracuse University’s School of Architecture as well as university senior advisor on architecture and urban initiatives. This work was modeled on his earlier portfolio as director of design at the National Endowment for the Arts during the Clinton administration in which he led a series of national programs to strengthen the presence of innovative design in the public realm. Robbins was founding curator of architecture at the Wexner Center for the Arts and associate professor in the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State from 1990- 1999. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Virginia, Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), and the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

In addition to monographs on his creative work, Robbins has produced and edited two book series on design and social impact and is a frequent lecturer on art and architecture. He is a recipient of numerous awards, including fellowships from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the American Academy in Rome and grants from NEA, Rockefeller, Andrew W. Mellon and Ford Foundations.

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