Robert P. Madison fought in World War II in Italy as a proud member of the historic Buffalo Soldiers, the all-African-American unit of the U.S. Army that traces its lineage back to the Civil War. Second Lieutenant Madison was wounded in combat and received a purple heart, but when he returned to civilian life in 1946, eager to resume his education at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve) in Cleveland, his application was summarily denied simply because he was black.

几天后，麦迪逊穿着紫色的心返回他的整裙制服，羞辱和胁迫下，行政人员勉强地承认了他上大学，尽管有些人小声说：“您永远不会成为建筑师。”

It was one of the many times that Madison, now 96, was underestimated during a life that created social change—Madison became the first African-American architect in Ohio, only the 10th in the nation, and eventually was named president of the Cleveland chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Madison’s career includes numerous milestones, such as working on some of the most important buildings in Cleveland, founding Robert P Madison International (RPMI), which continues to thrive today, and opening the door for minority architects across both business and academia.

“I came along at a time when things were pretty rough, as you could call it,” Madison says. “My mother was the real anchor in our whole life, and my father was trying to get a job in and out. I think that my mother was the one who said, ‘Look, you’re going to have to be twice as good as anybody else,’ and she meant that.”

麦迪逊（Madison）是克利夫兰（Cleveland）的本地人，他在大萧条时期在华盛顿特区长大，当时他从母亲那里收集了一个成长的课程。

“We had some pretty difficult times, and I remember we were evicted,” he says. “I went to school in the morning and came back, and all the furniture that we had, all of our belongings, were on the sidewalk. The rain was coming down and it was terrible, but my mother said, ‘The Lord is testing you. He wants you to be strong. This is just a test. You’ll be okay.’ You know what? We believed that.”

After moving back to Cleveland and going to East Technical High School, Madison embraced his strengths. And he excelled in mathematics.

When Madison tied with another student for a math prize at commencement, the school held a tie-breaker exam on a Saturday.

“We both took the exam for an hour and a half, and we laughed and we found out that they said it was still a tie. As far as I’m concerned, I think they just didn’t want to give it to me,” Madison says. “That was my realization that you got to be twice as good as anybody else to get equal.”

这将是麦迪逊的许多考验之一，他的职业生涯将通过。麦迪逊一直想成为一名建筑师，回到他最早的青年时期，甚至研究建筑定位如何使他在阿拉巴马州的祖母的住所在热火中舒适，尽管它没有自来水或电力。新利18备用

“The amazing thing to me is this all started—try and picture this—in 1928, and a five-year old black child in southern Alabama is told by his mother, after looking at one his school drawings, that he will be architect. And Robert answered, ‘Yes, Mother,’” says Robert Klann, CFO of RPMI.

麦迪逊在霍华德大学学习建筑，但他的教育被第二次世界大战打断了。战争结束后，他毕业于西部保护区，并获得了哈佛大学的建筑学硕士学位，并在沃尔特·格罗普斯（Walter Gropius）的领导下学习。新利18备用他获得了富布赖特（Fulbright）的建筑和城市设计奖学金，在巴黎的L'Ecole des Beaux艺术中学习，在那里他获得了Le Corbus新利18备用ier和Eugene Freyssinet的指导。

In 1954, after teaching architecture at Howard University for a year, Madison decided to return to Cleveland. He sought to start his own company, reasoning that the only way to effect the social change he wanted to see was to open an African-American-owned architecture firm to employ people of color.

“Why are we teaching these students architecture, but when they graduate there’s no real place for them to work? And they don’t know anybody in their field? I made it my mission to create a business of my own,” Madison says.

离开霍华德后，他为总部位于克利夫兰的建筑师罗伯特·A·利特尔（Robert A.当他参加州议会考试时，他第一次通过了。然后，麦迪逊继续开设了1954年将成为RPMI的公司。

RPMI将成为众多克利夫兰大型项目的建筑师或唱片建筑师，包括Quicken Loans Arena，摇滚名人堂（麦迪逊与已故朋友I.M. Pei合作），克利夫兰·布朗斯体育场新利18备用网址（Cleveland Browns Stadium）和卡尔·B·斯托克斯美国法院。在克利夫兰以外，该公司提供了许多非洲卫理公会的主教教堂和国际委员会，例如美国驻塞内加尔达喀尔大使馆。

麦迪逊说：“我只是想了解人类的行为，这就是我的建筑。”“对设计如何帮助人民发展，当他们开心时，我很高兴。我们还为老年人和低收入家庭做了很多住房，男孩，看到那些从来没有机会接近全新建筑物的人真是太高兴了，并欣赏什么it’s like for everything to work as it should.”

Over the years, RPMI’s business grew and Madison was able to hire hundreds of African-American architects and engineers, and the firm became one of the most well-known prestressed concrete designers in the region. Madison was invited to be on the board of trustees at Case Western Reserve University. He was also a key supporter in the election of Carl Stokes in 1967, who was Cleveland’s first African-American mayor. Upon his retirement in 2016, Madison sold the firm to his nephew Kevin Madison and his wife, Sandra Madison, and Klann.

“If there’s one thing I’d like to see change, is we had very few employees who wanted to go on to get graduate degrees and really go to the very top,” Madison says. “Aspire to be great because you can do it no matter who says you can’t. That’s the advice I’d give young people today.”

If you’d like to learn more about the legacy of Robert P. Madison, read his memoir “Designing Victory,” from Act 3 Creative.