Ivenue Love-Stanley, a woman who has broken a number of barriers as an architect and as an advocate for the profession, has received the 2014 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award. Since 1972, the AIA has given the award to an architect or organization working to pursue social justice and progressive values in architecture. Love-Stanley has earned a number of firsts for the profession. She was the first black woman to graduate from the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech. She was the first black woman to become a licensed architect in the Southeast. Even in winning this award, Love-Stanley unlocks another achievement: She and her husband, architect William Stanley, FAIA—with whom she cofounded Stanley, Love-Stanley, their Atlanta-based firm, in 1978—are the first husband-and-wife duo to receive the award. (Stanley got the award in 1995.)
Her accomplishments extend well beyond her status as a pioneering African American woman. She is known for tightening the bonds between the AIA and the National Organization of Minority Architects and leveraging that relationship for more support for minority architecture students. Love-Stanley has worked throughout her career as an advocate for underserved and minority communities, especially in her home of Atlanta and in particular at her alma mater. She worked for eight years on Atlanta’s Midtown Improvement District, has served on the City Zoning Review Board, and has sat on the board of the Atlanta Preservation Center. Love-Stanley worked to gain recognition for Atlanta's West End neighborhood as an historic district with a unique architectural heritage—a 15-year struggle.
“Ivenue used her knowledge of land-use, zoning and [the] historic preservation process, and of design, to make our 19th- and early-20th century African-American neighborhoods architecturally relevant and contextually better off," said Karl Webster Barnes, former director of the Georgia African American Historic Preservation Network, in his letter recommending Love-Stanley for the award. "Over time, and with a little prodding from Ms. Love-Stanley, developers before her boards began to understand how poor zoning and poorly designed projects would have long-term impacts on the behavior of Atlanta’s African-American urban youth.”
Love-Stanley joins the ranks of Harvey B. Gantt, FAIA, who won the award for 2013, and Mortimer Marshall Jr., who won the award for 2012.
Check out all the 2014 AIA Honor Awards.
