Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts and Culture

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Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts and Culture
South Tryon and Stonewall streets
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The Freelon Group out of Durham faced a tough challenge: design a four-story building only forty feet wide and 360 feet long that has presence -- and doesn't look like a billboard.

They succeeded, drawing on African textiles and other sources to create a façade with a jazzy pattern in glass and metal on the important south-facing elevation on Stonewall. The wall will allow passersby to see the guts of the building -- the stairs and escalator -- and the people going up and down.