Robert Coles - Table of Contents

 Robert T. Coles

Partial reprint

Erie County Has Always Been Home to Black Excellence - Robert T. Coles

By Charles Skowronski

Buffalo Rising, February 22, 2022

Born in Buffalo in 1929,  Robert Coles  was discouraged by his high school teachers and upon transferring from Hampton University to the University of Minnesota, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in architecture, was the only African American in his class. He would go on to get his Masters from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In a combined research and design thesis, Coles created an urban renewal project for the neighborhood in which he had attended high school. Titled “Community Facilities in Redevelopment Areas, A Study and Proposal for the Ellicott District in Buffalo, New York,” the project was created with the Buffalo Urban League as the client. Coles’ thesis reached a receptive audience in Western New York and was widely publicized in Buffalo. While at MIT, he would be the first African American to be awarded the Rotch Traveling Scholarship, which allowed him to travel to Europe.

After working for such prestigious firms as Shepley,
Bulfinch, Richardson, Carl Koch and Associates and Techbuilt, Coles would return to Buffalo to open his own practice in 1963.

 

Coles would get the opportunity to put his thesis to work when he was commissioned to create the Ellicott District Recreation Center, known today as the John F. Kennedy Recreation Center. During construction of the recreation center, Coles worked as coordinating architect with the firm of DeLeuw, Cather and Brill.

Following the completion of the project in 1963, Coles established his own architectural firm, Robert Traynham Coles, Architect pc. Still in operation in 2011, Coles’s practice is the oldest African American owned architectural firm in New York State and in the Northeast. Coles’ career would focus on community engagement while pursuing diversity, inclusion and equity in his work. He would continue to be an outspoken critic in the field of architecture, advocating for better equity and opportunities for both women and minorities.

When UB was reviewing where to build its new campus, Coles advocated for it to be built downtown, along the waterfront, citing the downtown campus would be more convenient for the city’s lower-income inner-city residents, who could not afford to commute to the northern suburbs. His firm would later be commissioned to build Alumni Arena on the new North Campus.

Robert T. Coles passed away on May 16, 2020 at the age of 90. In 2021, it was announced that the Utica Station would be renamed in his honor. His house and studio were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.


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