The work and words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are an inspiration for how to be in the world: committed to civil rights, peace, and justice for all.

We’re deeply honored as a firm to have the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change as part of our design portfolio legacy. This final resting place for Dr. King, home to the King Foundation, and resource for social change was designed in 1981 by J. Max Bond (1935-2009; shown in images), a Black architect who rose to national prominence during an era of social upheaval and change. 

In the 1950s, when Mr. Bond was attending Harvard University, he was subjected to a cross-burning incident in front of his dormitory, and was advised by a faculty member to give up the pursuit of architecture due to his race. He ignored that advice and went on to found the pre-eminent Black-owned, New York architectural firm Bond Ryder Associates, the predecessor firm to Davis Brody Bond, which joined Page in 2023. 

The Center was designed by Mr. Bond and his associates to represent a visual embrace of Dr. King’s tomb. Located in Atlanta, Georgia – the birthplace of Dr. King – the site includes Freedom Hall, Freedom Walk, the Chapel of All Faiths, a reflecting pool, and a barrel-vaulted colonnade extending the length of the site. The Archives and Administration Building is the world’s largest primary source collection on the Civil Rights movement. 

The King family had asked that the Center be built of humble materials – ones that would express Dr. King’s heritage. Working with local brick, concrete, West African Saple wood, and Southern US pine and white oak, the architects designed the Center to be neither overpoweringly monumental, nor under-reaching in its scale, but at a size and scale that would feel truly universal, break the confines of mainstream architecture, and result in an architecture truly representative of and honoring Dr. King’s views, and provide a deeply moving for all who experience the Center.

Photos of Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change by Gordon H. Schenck, Jr.
Photo of J. Max Bond by Todd France.