Julian Abele was a prominent black architect who built more than 400 buildings. Some of them were the Harvard University Widener Memorial Library, Monmouth University’s Shadow Lawn Mansion, the Central Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Most importantly, Abele was known for building the Duke University Chapel.
Abele was a Philadelphia, Pa., native. He came from a family line of successful men. His grandfather was a noted architect and his nephew, Julian Abele Cook, later designed Howard University. He was a descendant of Absalom Jones, the first American and black man to become an ordained priest of the Episcopal Church.
Abele was an architect that used many methods of design. He worked with watercolors, lithography, etching, wood, iron, gold, brass, precious metals stained glass and silver. He lived up to his nickname received at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art, which was “Willing and Able.”
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In 1902, Abele was the first black student to graduate from the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. After attending several schools to hone his craft of architecture, Abele traveled overseas to study the various designs in Europe, Germany, Greece, Switzerland and Spain. He was able to do so through the sponsorship of Horace Trumbauer, a respected Philadelphia architect. His designs carried the Beaux Arts style, a uniquely detailed style that he learned at the L’ecole des Beaux Arts School in Paris.
Trumbauer hired Abele full time after his travels as an assistant to the chief designer, Frank Seeburger. When Seeburger left Trumbauer, it was Abele’s turn to take over as Chief Designer. He was paid high wages. Under the firm, Abele and his architects took on several buildings at Duke University, including the Cameron Indoor Stadium and the Allen Administration Building.
Julian Abele married a woman 20 years his junior named Marguerite. They would have three children, all of which Abele would continue raising alone after his wife left him for another man in 1936.
Abele was always dressed like a gentleman. Even at the beach, he wore a three-piece suit. Though impeccably dressed and highly intelligent, he was still subjected to racism. When he attempted to visit the Duke University campus, which held several of his designs, he was refused a room at the Durham hotel in North Carolina. Even his own spectacular designs on the campuses and all over the country could not bear his signature until after the death of Horace Trumbauer.
Julian Abele died in 1950. It was not until the late 1980’s and after student protest, which was sparked by Abele’s granddaughter, that a portrait of Abele was allowed to hang on Duke University’s campus. It was the first portrait of an African American on display at the university.
