Norma Merrick Sklarek (1928 – Present)
Born in 1928, Norma Merrick Sklarek was the first African-American woman to be licensed as an architect in the United States and the first woman to be elected Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
In 1985, she helped establish the first architectural firm to be formed and managed by an African-American woman. Sklarek was born to West Indian parents who had moved to Harlem, New York. Sklarek’s father, a doctor, encouraged her to excel in school and to seek a career in a field not normally open to females or to African Americans.
After receiving her degree, she was unable to find work at an architecture firm. Took a job at the New York Department of Public Works. She then worked for several firms like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Gruen and Associates (the firm’s first female director), Welton Becket Associates (Vicepresident), and Jerde Partnership.
Today, Siegel, Sklarek, Diamond is one of the largest firms in the United States to be owned entirely by women. Working primarily on major building complexes such as enclosed-mall shopping centers, high-rise office buildings, hotels, hospitals and apartment buildings, projects which require knowledge of high-tech state-of-the art engineering, construction and electronic systems. Her projects are located not only in semi-tropical areas of the United States, but also in high-seismic-probability California and Japan.
Notable Buildings:
City Hall in San Bernardino, California
Fox Plaza in San Francisco
Terminal One at the Los Angeles International Airport
U.S. Embassy in Tokyo
