Studio Barnes and Ch_studio to convert former KKK building in Texas into arts centre
A team including Studio Barnes and Ch_studio has revealed designs for the 1920s building once used by the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan in Fort Worth, Texas, into a "catalyst for community and restoration".
The 35,000-square-foot (3,251 square metre) building is located between Fort Worth's Historic Northside and downtown area, and its planned transformation will be an act of "reparative justice" according to its design team.
The Transform 1012 Center for Arts and Community Healing building will contain three levels with programming dedicated to local cultural and arts groups, including a theatre, makerspaces, classrooms, dance spaces, a bar and cafe and an outdoor amphitheatre.
The building was once a base of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) activity before the group vacated the property in 1927. It was then bought by a local department store and later held the Ellis Pecan Company between 1946 and 1999.
The adaptive reuse design by architecture offices Studio Barnes, Ch_studio and GFF with landscape architecture practice JIMA Studio "seeks to confront the past rather than erase it" and centres around a balance of preserving historical elements, such as the brick facade, while introducing contemporary elements, such as reorganising the interior.
"For us, the central challenge was determining how to transform a structure defined by racial violence into a catalyst for community and restoration," said the design team in a joint statement.
"While the site's dark history offered a strong case for tearing down the structure, our design approach seeks to confront the past rather than erase it."
In particular, the group sought to open up the interior and exterior to new sightlines and passageways that cut through the entirety of the site to contrast the former design building to "intimidate and divide".
Renderings show the new building clad in its original brick facade interspersed with other textures and materials such as weathering steel, striated concrete panels, and perforated metal screens.
Openings, plazas, curving pathways and a lush landscape are also shown throughout the property.
The building's programming will be dedicated to groups that have suffered from the KKK's violence and exclusion, according to the team, including Black, Catholic, Hispanic, immigrant, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ communities.
The project has been led by local group Transform 1012 N Main Street, a coalition including parties such as SOL Ballet Folklórico, The Welman Project and activist Dr Opal Lee, which purchased the building in 2021.
A second-floor gallery will also be dedicated to the histories of race relations in North Texas and highlight the memory of Fred Rouse, a Black father and butcher lynched in Fort Worth in 1921.
The building's landscape will include design based on African Diasporic, Indigenous, and Mexican Diasporic traditions.
The team seeks to reuse waste materials, and according to the team, has already diverted more than 195 tons of material from landfills, including concrete and lumber, for the build.
Construction is anticipated to begin in Summer 2027, with opening slated for Winter 2028.
The KKK was founded in the late 1860s in Tennessee. Throughout the decades, it has operated in both secrecy and flagrant displays of violence and racism, primarily against the Black community.
Although KKK activity has decreased since its founding, the group is still active around the US and elsewhere.
Other recent projects that seek to address the history of racial and discriminatory violence in the United States include the International African American Museum designed by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Moody Nolan and a Holocaust memorial in Florida.
The images are courtesy of Transform 1012 N Main Street.
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