Quiet, quick-witted, honest, straightforward and the type of person “you couldn’t bullshit—” these are just some of the words former students and colleagues of Julian White— LSU’s first Black faculty member and respected Baton Rouge architect— used to describe him.
A mural of White in LSU’s Art and Design building was completed in March by Robert Dafford, an artist globally known for his murals. The painting depicts White leading a march of faculty and students, representing all the doors White opened for those behind him as the University’s first Black professor.
Before becoming Louisiana’s second Black licensed architect, White was required to take the state license architecture exam in the 1960s. He was segregated from the white test takers.
The room White was assigned to take the test in would later become his office when he joined LSU’s Department of Architecture in 1971, where he would leave immeasurable impacts on the thousands of students he would teach over his 33-year long educational career.
White retired from LSU in 2003 and passed away in 2011 after a battle with cancer. The impact White left on the Baton Rouge and LSU community still echoes in the memories of those students and colleagues who knew him.
Architecture professor Michael Desmond worked with White at LSU.
“The thing I think I remember the most about him, or the thing that stands out the most, was just how forthright and honest he always seemed,” Desmond said. “It seemed like that was just the character of him, just an outstanding human being.”
Architecture professor Tom Sofranko worked with White on small architectural projects in the Baton Rouge area for over nine years.
“I can’t tell you how many times we would go to lunch or go to the coffee shop, then we’d get in the car [and] he’s doing some calculation in his head and he’s like ‘oh wait,’” Sofranko said. “We’d go back into the store because the cashier had miscounted and given him an extra dime. He did it enough so that it was something I teased him about.”
Sofranko said White’s teaching style went far beyond conveying information about architecture. He could teach you how to be a grown up and a professional.
As a student and mentee of White’s, Lisa Nice said White was different from her other architecture teachers.
“You couldn’t BS him, he could see through the BS,” Nice said. “Some students were very talented at doing that and some professors tended to eat it up, some of the more design-oriented professors. You could not do that with Professor White because he could see right through it. He didn’t buy it because he dealt with real-world architecture and real-world problems.”
White worked as a professor whilst maintaining his architectural practice in Baton Rouge, giving him a teaching style other professors couldn’t match.
“He always spoke from experience,” Desmond said. “He was always very direct and straightforward and I guess you could say pragmatic. A lot of times people that just started tend to be conceptual and idealistic and impractical, but he was not like that. He was always down to earth. He knew architecture from both sides.
White was ahead of his time as an architect, according to those who worked with him.
Sofranko said he and White worked together at a time when computer software was becoming an increasingly popular tool to use in designing buildings.
“I think many people in his position would say ‘Oh that new software is for the young folks,’ but Julian wanted to dig in and be on top of it,” Sofranko said.
Desmond said a building White designed in the 70s, which was at the time a medical clinic, had a lasting impression on him.
“It’s a modern building, kind of striking building, but it’s also very unassuming in a way,” Desmond said. “When you go into it, there were large beautiful plate-glass windows looking into the landscaping around it.”
Desmond said the healthcare industry has recently begun to quantify how a patient’s access to the natural world— a patient being able to see green things out of their hospital room for example— has a quantifiable effect on how much painkiller they require and how quickly they recover.
“It’s a burgeoning field, this evidence-based design they call it in terms of healthcare,” Desmond said. “Julian was way ahead of the curve on that. I remember going into Julian’s building in the early ‘90s and remembering how pleasant it was to sit in the waiting room and wait for the doctor to come and how calm you felt. It was forward-thinking. Not a lot of people were thinking about that in the mid-70s.”
Sofranko recounted that White was passionate about jazz and was knowledgeable in several areas outside of architecture. Derryl Didier was a student and colleague of White’s. He said White was an outstanding and ethical man.
“He didn’t want to be a Black architect— he didn’t want to be a white architect— he wanted to be an architect,” Didier said. “He would really get upset if somebody brought that up.
“‘I just want to be an architect. I just want to be a great architect— I always really, really respected him for that.”