Julian Abele

Career

Presentation drawing (1918) for the Free Library of Philadelphia. Although unsigned, this appears to be drawn by Abele. Following graduation from the University of Pennsylvania in 1902, Abele traveled west to Spokane, Washington, where he designed a house for his sister, Elizabeth Abele Cook. Abele spent a couple years in Europe before joining the Trumbauer firm in 1906, as assistant to chief designer Frank Seeburger. Brownlee credits design of the exterior terracing, the cascade of waterfalls, and the front steps celebrated in the 1976 film Rocky, to Abele.

Abele was also the architect for Eisenlohr Hall, 1910–11, which serves as the residence of the president of the University of Pennsylvania on the Penn campus.

Following Trumbauer's death in 1938, the firm continued until 1950 under the name "Office of Horace Trumbauer," co-headed by Abele and William O. Frank. Commissions were hard to come by during The Depression and World War II, but the firm completed Duke Indoor Stadium at Duke University in 1940, and later made additions to Duke's Library (1948) and designed Duke's Allen Administrative Building (1954).

When Abele joined the American Institute of Architects in 1942, Philadelphia Museum of Art director Fiske Kimball called him "one of the most sensitive designers in America". Smithsonian Magazine described him, in a career retrospective, as "probably the most accomplished [Black architect] of his era."

Despite being the primary designer of Duke University, Abele was refused accommodations at a Durham hotel during a visit to campus. Although it was not until 1988 that a portrait of him was displayed at the university, the main quad at Duke University is now officially named Abele Quad with a dedication plaque prominently placed at the busiest spot on campus.

Personal life In 1925, at age 44, Abele married Marguerite Bulle, a French pianist 20 years his junior. They had three children: Julian Abele Jr., Marguerite Marie Abele (died young), and Nadia Boulanger Abele. Marguerite left him in 1936, to become the common-law wife of opera singer Jozef Kowalewski, with whom she had three additional children.

Abele died from a heart attack in 1950, in Philadelphia.

Legacy The Allen Administration Building at Duke University, designed by Abele, was completed following his 1950 death. In 1988, Duke University posthumously honored Abele with a portrait that hangs in the building's main lobby. This was the first portrait of an African-American to be displayed on campus. On August 17, 2012, construction began on Julian Abele Park, at 22nd & Carpenter Streets in Philadelphia. To prominently acknowledge his contribution to Duke University's West Campus, the main quad at Duke was officially named Abele Quad in 2016. A dedication plaque was placed at the very center of west campus that he designed. Abele's great-nephew, attorney Julian Abele Cook Jr. (1930–2017), was nominated to a federal judgeship in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in 1978, by President Jimmy Carter. Abele's great-great-nephew, Peter D. Cook (b. 1963), is a Washington, D.C. architect who collaborated on the design of the Smithsonian Institutionʼs National Museum of African American History and Culture. President Joseph Biden appointed Cook to the United States Commission of Fine Arts in 2021. The American Institute of Architects elected Cook to its College of Fellows in 2022.

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