Remembering “Trailblazing Architect” Charles E. Fleming, 86

Charles E. Fleming, AIA, UC ’61, celebrated architect who was dedicated to creating opportunities in the Black community, died July 8, 2024. He was 86.

Born and raised in St. Louis, Fleming took an early interest in art and architecture. In an interview earlier this year, he recounted his kindergarten teacher encouraging him to explore art and design. His grandfather, who did interior work like wallpapering and painting, was also an influential figure in his life, getting Fleming involved with his work from young age.

Fleming graduated from Douglass High School in Webster Groves in 1955, and quickly began his career as a draftsman for a local construction business. He graduated with a certificate in architecture from WashU’s University College, now the School of Continuing & Professional Studies, in 1961. He was the university’s first Black graduate in architecture. Following several commissions for houses, small banks, clinics, and churches, he established a successful career in architecture as the president of the eponymous Fleming Corporation, the first Black person to own a full-service architecture firm in Missouri.

Fleming’s built projects in St. Louis include homes on Bennett Avenue in Richmond Heights, one of the first few suburban streets open to Black buyers in the 1950s and ’60s due to redlining. He also designed his own residence in suburban St. Louis in 1972, a three-story informal design in wood. In a 2021 virtual panel, he shared that it was one of his all-time favorite projects.

In 1965, Fleming and six others — including Roger Montgomery, co-founder of the Urban Design program at WashU with Fumihiko Maki — founded the Urban Housing Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit created to tackle the effects of racism in housing. The organization worked to ensure fair distribution of opportunities in community development and increase construction employment opportunities, as well as lending management experience to disadvantaged groups. He served as St. Louis City Housing Commissioner, appointed by Mayor Alfonso J. Cervantes.

Fleming was also instrumental in building Gateway National Bank, the first minority-owned bank in Missouri. Other credits to Fleming’s name that greatly benefited the community include the St. Louis Comprehensive Care Center, St. Philip’s Lutheran Church, Parks Chapel AME Church, the renovation of the former Homer G. Phillips Hospital into senior apartments, East St. Louis Public Schools, and the State Community College — now Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s East St. Louis Center. Following a 1975 ruling that found public schools in St. Louis to be illegally segregated, he worked with the school district on renovations for more than a decade.

In addition to his work in St. Louis, Fleming collaborated on projects nationally, through his partnership with Carey Jenkins and the firm Jenkins-Fleming from 1968-79 — which had six offices across the U.S. — as well as doing freelance work with HOK and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in the early 1970s. One of his significant buildings was the physicians’ dormitory at Martin Luther King, Jr. General Hospital in Los Angeles’ Watts Neighborhood. The hospital was built in 1972, in part in response to the 1965 Watts Riots that highlighted the lack of medical services in the area. Other projects included Atlanta’s Art Center MARTA Station and Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria.

In April 2024, Fleming received the Dean’s Medal, the Sam Fox School’s most prestigious honor. Carmon Colangelo, the school’s Ralph J. Nagel Dean, shared that “Charles E. Fleming was a trailblazing architect whose career spanned over five decades, dedicated to providing innovative solutions to fundamental injustices and mentoring countless architects. His legacy of community enrichment and commitment to fair housing will continue to inspire and impact future generations. I was truly honored to get to know Charles last spring and recognize his life’s achievements.”

During the Awards for Distinction ceremony, Virvus Jones, father of St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones, shared a proclamation from the mayor’s office that April 18 had been named Charles E. Fleming Day.

Fleming’s work is included in the Kemper Art Museum exhibition catalogue “Design Agendas: Modern Architecture in St. Louis, 1930s-1970s,” edited by Eric Mumford, the Rebecca and John Voyles Professor of Architecture, with an essay by Shantel Blakely, previously an assistant professor in the school and now an assistant professor at Rice University. An exhibition of the same name will be on view at the Kemper Art Museum this fall, curated by Mumford and Michael E. Willis, AB ’73, MArch/MSW ’76. Willis began his career working for Fleming and opened the San Francisco branch of Jenkins-Fleming in the early 1980s.

“Charles Fleming studied architecture here at WashU during the most productive period for modern architecture in St. Louis, which coincided with the Civil Rights movement here and nationally,” Mumford shared. “In his career, Fleming made courageous and very significant contributions to advancing architecture by and for Black Americans.”

Service information will be available here.