Acclaimed Design Firm Selected to Create Emory’s Twin Memorials to Honor the Enslaved

A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, Walter Hood has excelled — throughout his career — at creating spaces that teach, challenge and unite. His work sheds new light on overlooked history, bringing people together through shared understanding to inspire a better future. He has received prestigious awards and honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Knight Foundation Public Spaces Fellowship, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, the Academy of Arts and Letters Architecture Award and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Acknowledging the importance of Black history was an important catalyst in Hood’s career. “I could have just accepted the privileged position of a designer, but what was missing was myself. Discovering my voice made it possible to hear other voices and to explore how to creatively surface their histories in the places they live,” Hood says. He is the author of the 2020 book “Black Landscapes Matter,” co-authored with Grace Mitchell Tada.

Hood has leveraged his training and talent to create public art and architecture that discovers unique connections, poses courageous questions and brings communities together. One question that animates every Hood project is: “How can we leave room for new information to enter the conversation?”

He just began an appointment as chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, which he first joined as a professor in 1993. Hood also has taught at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.