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The Center for Civil & Human Rights
The Center for Civil & Human Rights
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Other Projects by Huff + Gooden Architects
The Center for Civil & Human Rights
The Center for Civil & Human Rights should be unlike any other cultural museum in the United States or in the world. While racial equality was the centerpiece of the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the call for rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness now extends to human rights struggles around the world and “We Shall Overcome” remains a stalwart battle hymn for those seeking equality and justice. Therefore, the design of the new Center must not rely upon clichés, tropes, and pastiche but the design should manifest the spatial inter-connectedness of human struggles.
The design proposal situates the architecture as an instrument in the streams of human flows, cultural and commercial exchanges, public space and urban life. The intention is to make spatial this cultural context in the “now” and confront the restructuring of social and cultural values brought on by liberated identities and the relationships between civil and human rights.
Additionally, the proposal suspends the Center within the urban space of Atlanta creating dialogue with the adjacent Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca Cola and spatial extension of Centennial Olympic Park. Simultaneously a new public realm is created beneath the building and within the shade of its ideals providing a refuge from the heat of injustice to become an oasis of freedom and justice. This new public realm literally extends the cultural landscape of the Center to the streets of the city to provide spaces for exterior exhibits, outdoor performances, and cultural gatherings.
The experience of Center as a journey begins at the waters edge of the upper reflecting pool. Visitors cross the threshold of the water along a ramp as they enter the building and are guided by thresholds of light, columns of light, and a wall of light as they move through the exhibition experience. Water rolls down from the upper reflecting pool creating a stream that leads towards the outdoor amphitheater and culminates in a cooling wellspring of respite. During certain dry seasons the reflecting pools will reveal stone beds that remind us of stones of hope for justice and freedom for all.
The lightness of the Center marks its status as a place of ideals, dreams, freedom, and justice for all. At the approach from the Ellipse the Center appears to float at the horizon as the building does not touch the ground, reflections of light in the reflecting pools dematerialize the top edge of the slope, and the water supported glass entry overhang refracts and scatters light at the entry sequence. Structural steel framed stair cores clad with diffused glazing and a transverse concrete bearing wall that lightly touch the ground at the site’s lower elevation support the Center above the amphitheater, exterior exhibits and parking structure. Custom glass columns of light direct diffused sunlight through the building lighting the Civil Rights timeline and illuminating the amphitheater and exterior exhibits below.
The design proposal situates the architecture as an instrument in the streams of human flows, cultural and commercial exchanges, public space and urban life. The intention is to make spatial this cultural context in the “now” and confront the restructuring of social and cultural values brought on by liberated identities and the relationships between civil and human rights.
Additionally, the proposal suspends the Center within the urban space of Atlanta creating dialogue with the adjacent Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca Cola and spatial extension of Centennial Olympic Park. Simultaneously a new public realm is created beneath the building and within the shade of its ideals providing a refuge from the heat of injustice to become an oasis of freedom and justice. This new public realm literally extends the cultural landscape of the Center to the streets of the city to provide spaces for exterior exhibits, outdoor performances, and cultural gatherings.
The experience of Center as a journey begins at the waters edge of the upper reflecting pool. Visitors cross the threshold of the water along a ramp as they enter the building and are guided by thresholds of light, columns of light, and a wall of light as they move through the exhibition experience. Water rolls down from the upper reflecting pool creating a stream that leads towards the outdoor amphitheater and culminates in a cooling wellspring of respite. During certain dry seasons the reflecting pools will reveal stone beds that remind us of stones of hope for justice and freedom for all.
The lightness of the Center marks its status as a place of ideals, dreams, freedom, and justice for all. At the approach from the Ellipse the Center appears to float at the horizon as the building does not touch the ground, reflections of light in the reflecting pools dematerialize the top edge of the slope, and the water supported glass entry overhang refracts and scatters light at the entry sequence. Structural steel framed stair cores clad with diffused glazing and a transverse concrete bearing wall that lightly touch the ground at the site’s lower elevation support the Center above the amphitheater, exterior exhibits and parking structure. Custom glass columns of light direct diffused sunlight through the building lighting the Civil Rights timeline and illuminating the amphitheater and exterior exhibits below.
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