When Carl Stokes was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1967, “that’s when
things really opened up,” Madison says. Stokes was one of the first two black
mayors of major American cities. The other was Richard Hatcher of Gary,
Indiana, elected at the same time as Stokes. Their elections broke ground for
black community leaders to win mayoral elections across America.
Madison’s brother Julian, a civil engineer like his father, knew Hatcher.
Another friend of Julian’s was Kenneth Gibson, elected mayor of Newark, New
Jersey in 1970. Madison & Madison International, as the firm was now called,
got commissions from both Hatcher and Gibson, and even opened an office
in Gary. Maynard Jackson, elected mayor of Atlanta in 1973, commissioned
the firm to work on Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. That
connection came from both being members of the influential black fraternity
Alpha Phi Alpha, of which many of America’s most prominent black political
leaders and artists were members, including Martin Luther King, Jr., Duke
Ellington, W.E.B Dubois, and Thurgood Marshall.
Of course there was much more to it than making use of connections.
“There was painstaking preparation, and arduous hours in demonstrating our
skills to an eager clientele. I am good at what I do,” Madison says behind his
boyish grin.
One has only to visit the firm’s website at rpmadison.com to see the list of
projects the firm has been involved with in Greater Cleveland alone, including the
Cleveland Public Library, the Downtown Hilton Hotel, the Cleveland Museum of
Art, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland
Browns Stadium, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Great
Lakes Science Center. Yet his proudest achievement is the American embassy in
Dakar, Senegal —
“the port city where my ancestors came from.”
Madison finally retired in 2016 at the age of 93. He sold the firm — now
called Robert P. Madison International — to three of his employees, including
his nephew Kevin, Kevin’s wife Sandra, and Robert Klann. Sandra is the majority
owner, and today the firm is the largest black female-owned architecture firm
in Ohio.
Who ever heard of a black architect? In 21st century Northeast Ohio, pretty
WWW.SHAKER.LIFE | SPRING 2019 43
much anyone who matters. SL
Above: Madison looks over a model of
Cleveland State University’s College of
Sciences and Health Professions, which
he designed in the early 1980s.
Top: Madison poses by the Frank
J. Lausche State Office Building in
downtown Cleveland, 1979. He was
one of three architects who designed
the seven-sided building.
/rpmadison.com
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