Mabel Wilson

Mabel O. Wilson, is the Nancy and George E. Rupp Professor in Architecture and a professor in African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University. She also serves as the Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies and co-directs Global Africa Lab. In 2020, she was appointed as a Research Associate with the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg.

With her practice Studio &, she is a collaborator in the architectural team that recently completed the Memorial to Enslaved African American Laborers at the University of Virginia. For Museum of Modern Art, she is co-curator of the forthcoming exhibition Reconstructions: Blackness and Architecture in America. She’s a founding member of Who Builds Your Architecture? (WBYA?) a collective that advocates for fair labor practices on building sites worldwide. She has authored Begin with the Past: Building the National Museum of African American History and Culture (2017) and Negro Building: African Americans in the World of Fairs and Museums (2012). She co-edited with Irene Cheng and Charles Davis the volume Race and Modern Architecture: From the Enlightenment to Today (2020).