Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
Birmingham, Alabama

64,000 SF • 60,000 SQ M

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is both a locally-focused history museum and an international center for civil rights research and education. Max Bond was an integral member of the committee that established the Institute’s mission and program and led the subsequent design process, which coincided with the merger of Bond Ryder and Davis Brody Associates into Davis Brody Bond.

Design began with a three-day client/architect workshop that established fundamental planning and formal themes. We also interviewed members of the Birmingham community, prominent and not, to fully understand the range of ambitions for the Institute. Throughout the design process, Max Bond and Davis Brody Bond remained open to community input while always remembering our responsibility to advocate for clear and meaningful architecture.

The Institute’s site is historic and fraught:  It faces both the 16th Street Baptist Church and Kelly Ingram Park; the Gaston Motel, a base for the civil rights movement leadership, is nearby. To draw these locations into a dialogue, the building steps back from the street to extend the park and bring the front of the Church into an urban composition. The Institute’s entry is aligned with the statue of Dr. Martin Luther King in the park. Materials and architectural forms relate to Birmingham’s local architecture, and the central rotunda echoes the domed transept of the Church.

(Photography by Patricia Layman Bazelton and M. Lewis Kennedy)