Norma Sklarek

Norma Merrick Sklarek was born on the fifteenth of April 1926 in Harlem, New York, the only child of Walter Ernest Merrick, a Trinidadian-born Harlem physician, and Amelia (Amy) Willoughby Merrick, a seamstress. Both parents had immigrated from Trinidad, and her father, recognizing her gift for mathematics and art, encouraged her toward architecture. She enrolled at Barnard College and transferred to Columbia University, graduating in 1950 with a Bachelor of Architecture as the only African American woman in her class.

The road beyond the diploma was steep. Reportedly turned away by numerous firms, she took a post as a junior draftsperson with the New York Department of Public Works. In 1954, passing the state licensing examination on her first attempt, she became the first African American woman licensed as an architect in New York. In 1962 she earned the same distinction in California, and in 1959 became the first African American woman admitted to membership in the American Institute of Architects.

Her career spanned some of the era's landmark commissions. At Gruen Associates she served as a director of architecture, contributing to major works including the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and later, at Welton Becket Associates, she was project director for Terminal One at Los Angeles International Airport, completed ahead of the 1984 Olympics. In 1980 she became the first African American woman elevated to the AIA College of Fellows.

In 1985 she co-founded Siegel Sklarek Diamond, then among the largest woman-owned architectural firms in the United States. A mentor and teacher to those who followed, she has been called the "Rosa Parks of architecture." Norma Merrick Sklarek opened doors that had never before been opened, and generations of architects walk through them still.