Born and raised in Chicago, Germane Barnes developed an interest in architecture in high school when a substitute teacher introduced him to a Black architect. Although his parents hoped he’d become a lawyer, Barnes remained focused on his passion for art and architecture.
After a long road toward professional licensure, he eventually founded Studio Barnes in Miami, garnering awards along the way. His first solo museum exhibition, Columnar Disorder, is now on display at the Art Institute Chicago.
Barnes’ Rock | Roll installation in Miami played music and was lit up at night
Here, Barnes, who is also an associate professor and director of the master of architecture professional degree program at the University of Miami, talks about his path and work.
How did your career journey start?
Germane Barnes: My sister got sick my junior year of high school and Syracuse [where I wanted to attend] went out the window. I ended up at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign because they have an architecture program.
My freshman year there, my sister died of cancer. I didn’t know how to adjust, and the lack of representation [at school] made me uncomfortable talking to people about what was going on. I ended up doing so poorly I got kicked out. I had to retake the courses in the summer. But those two semesters screwed my GPA, and I couldn’t get into grad school.
I stumbled upon a program in the career services office that paired students with internship opportunities, and it sent me to Cape Town. It changed my life. I worked for SJM Architects, which did community-oriented design. I had never heard of anything like it.
What happened once you returned to the U.S.?
GB: I had an undergraduate degree, but I went back to community college to take an intro to architecture, design, and portfolio course. I had to humble myself. I got rejected from almost all of the schools I applied to because I was still not comfortable writing about what happened with my sister and how it affected my grades. But Woodbury University in Los Angeles, led by Barbara Bestor and Norman Miller, asked me to come in for an interview. In the meeting, Barbara wanted to know what happened during those two semesters. It was the first time anyone asked me. I got in and had job offers before I graduated.
In collaboration with RAD Lab, the immersive ON/ installation for Lexus featured electrified swings
What was your path to starting your own practice?
GB: [I stayed in LA] and worked for François Perrin, a French architect who was doing innovative work between art and architecture. We were in a coworking space with an artist and another architect who had some extra work for me.
In 2013, I moved to Miami to lead a project [that ended up not happening]. I was already embedded in the office of the nonprofit [client], so I stayed and became a kind of designer in residence.
After three and a half years, in 2017, I formed Studio Barnes. A year later, I won the Graham Foundation grant for my research project Sacred Stoops: Typological Studies of Black Congregational Spaces. Everything took off from there.
You are also director of the Community Housing & Identity Lab at the University of Miami.
GB: The lab is funded by a research grant and works with communities to create designs that tell their stories. We’ll pick a neighborhood or a nonprofit and do a design exercise with them. That’s where the academic research pairs with the real-life process.
What’s your focus now with Studio Barnes?
GB: There’s the side that does academic, artistic exploration—chairs we designed for museums, 2D collages that have been acquired. Then there’s the architecture arm. My first tower project was Tone, an arts complex in Memphis that’s now a Black artists’ enclave and community. [We’re working on] a massive market complex in Delray Beach, Florida, and a permanent pavilion in Chicago along a new elevated rail, like a viewing deck for a public park. I jokingly tell people I don’t like showing things until they’re finished—we all know how long architecture takes.
This is part of an ongoing interview series curated by the Hospitality Diversity Action Council (HDAC).
