Phil Freelon is the founder and president of The Freelon Group, Architects – a 60 person firm based in Durham, NC specializing in higher education, science & technology and museum projects, The firm has completed major museums in Baltimore, MD, San Francisco, CA, Greensboro and Charlotte, NC. The team of Freelon Adjaye Bond is leading the design for the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture currently under construction on the Mall in Washington, DC. Recent commissions include libraries in Washington, DC, Atlanta, GA and Chicago, IL as well as a commemorative park in Houston, TX and a museum in Jackson, MS.
The Freelon Group has received over 50 American Institute of Architects (AIA) design awards and has also received AIA North Carolina’s Outstanding Firm Award in 2001.
Freelon has served as an adjunct professor at the College of Design, North Carolina State University and has been a visiting critic and lecturer at Harvard, the University of Maryland, Syracuse University, the University of Virginia, Kent State University, the University of Cincinnati, Catholic University and the University of California-Berkeley, among others.
Freelon is one of 30 licensed architects and 31 LEED® Accredited Professionals in his firm and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. In 2009 he received the AIA Thomas Jefferson Award for Public Architecture and in 2010 he was awarded AIA North Carolina’s Gold Medal. In 2011 he was appointed by President Barrack Obama to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.
A native of Philadelphia, PA., Freelon holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design (Architecture) from North Carolina State University's College of Design and a Master of Architecture from MIT. Freelon is also a recipient the Loeb Fellowship from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.
