Kenneth Roderick O'Neal

Kenneth Roderick O'Neal (1908–1989), was an American architect, engineer, and painter. He founded the first Black-owned and led architecture firm in downtown Chicago. O'Neal was an artist of the Harlem Renaissance, who later studied under former Bauhaus instructors and colleagues of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Georgia Louise Harris Brown.

Early life and education Kenneth Roderick O'Neal was born on July 30, 1908, in Union, Franklin County, Missouri. He attended Sumner High School in St. Louis, Missouri. Georgia Louise Harris Brown, the second African American woman in the country to become a licensed architect, also worked at the firm of O'Neal from 1945 to 1949. and "A Volume of Contemporary Homes" (1980).

ONeal maintained an architectural firm, K. Roderick O'Neal and Associates, as a physical office from the late 1940's to 1958, when he accepted a position as architect for the City of Chicago, Department of Public Works, Bureau of Architecture. While with the city, he still provided architectural services working from a home office.

He retired from the city in 1983. O'Neal married three times.

Work

Lawrence E. Smith residence (1964), 8348 South Calumet, Chicago, Illinois

Publications