Artist Theaster Gates and landscape designer Sara Zewde have designed a pavilion from recovered building materials that will be a community centre in a historic Black neighbourhood in Houston, Texas.
Part of an ongoing Rebirth in Action partnership between Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy (HFTC) and Gates, the project will serve as a performance and gathering place for the organisation and wider community.
Zewde, founder of her eponymous studio, will work with Gates to create the stage, which has been depicted as a semi-circular pavilion with a structural system supporting a slightly sloped awning.
Facing a grass area stacked bricks will act as a screen behind the slightly raised stage area. The bricks are an important part of the project, as they represent a continuation of Stage One of the Rebirth in Action initiative, which aimed to preserve the area’s historic brick streets and buildings.
So far the work has included the cataloguing and preservation of 20,000 bricks. According to HFTC, its goal is to show how preservation can become a shared endeavour for a community.
“Rebirth in Action demonstrates the strength of true collaboration, grounded in a community‑centered approach and aligned around a shared purpose,” said HFTC
“This project elevates the story beyond the bricks, revealing the years of intentional preservation work happening behind the scenes. Today is about restoration – not just of streets, but of history and dignity – underscoring that preservation and reinvestment must go hand in hand.”
The pavilion structure will sit alongside a sunken lawn, with pathways and plantings rising up towards the adjacent lots.
Directly across from the pavilion are three former row houses being renovated by Hines Architecture + Design into a community building, which will sit on an elevated porch.
Freedman’s Town was founded by freed slaves in 1865 after Juneteenth. Many of the original structures have fallen into disrepair over time due, according to a spokesperson, to reductions in resources.
Known for his creative rehabilitation of a neighbourhood in Chicago’s Southside, Gates put on an exhibition in Houston in 2024.
Melissa McDonnell Luján, who serves as co-director of CAMH, noted Studio Zewde’s and Hines Architecture + Design’s roots in Houston and the potential of this approach combined with Gates’ experience.
“Their collaboration with Theaster considers how memory, cultural narratives, and future trajectories co-exist within the site so that a public artwork is the catalyst for three restored row houses returning to a cooperative-community use and an indistinguishable former backyard is reclaimed and renewed through landscape,” said Luján.
The project broke ground on 31 May.
Other projects that involve the preservation of African American culture include Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and Moody Nolan’s International African American Museum in Charleston as well as Conserving Black Modernism’s ongoing work to highlight and preserve buildings across the country.
The images are courtesy of Studio Zewde.
Project credits:
Design Team: Theaster Gates, Studio Zewde, Guy Nordenson and Associates, Hines A+D
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