Phil Freelon is the founder and President of The Freelon Group, Inc. Under his direction, the firm has established a reputation for design excellence and outstanding professional service. With over 30 years of experience in project design and management, Phil ensures that each client receives maximum value from design concepts through construction and occupancy.
Phil guides the firm’s museum and cultural center work, establishing programmatic and design direction while advancing each project forward to completion. He has led multi-faceted design teams on museum projects in Washington DC, Baltimore, MD, San Francisco, CA, Philadelphia, PA, Atlanta & Augusta, GA and Greensboro & Charlotte, NC.
Freelon’s work has been published in national professional journals including Architecture, Progressive Architecture, Architectural Record, and Contract magazine where he was named Designer of the Year for 2008. Metropolis and Metropolitan Home magazines and the New York Times have also featured Freelon and the firm. His furniture design has been recognized nationally including first prize in the PPG Furniture Design Competition and design contract work with Herman Miller.
Freelon is the architect of record for the Museum for African American History and Culture. The museum’s design is the result of an intense collaboration among Freelon and two other architects: David Adjaye and the late Max Bond. They came together in 2008 as Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup to compete for the design. They would prevail over 21 other star-studded teams jampacked with names such as Richard Meier, I.M. Pei and Norman Foster.
A native of Philadelphia, PA, Freelon earned his Bachelor of Environmental Design degree in Architecture from North Carolina State University and his Master of Architecture degree from MIT. Phil also received a Loeb Fellowship and spent a year of independent study at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He has served as an adjunct faculty member at North Carolina State University’s College of Design and has been a visiting critic/lecturer at Harvard, MIT, the University of Maryland, Syracuse University, Auburn University, the University of Utah, the California College of the Arts, Kent State University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology, among others. Phil is currently on the faculty at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning.
Freelon is a Peer Professional for the GSA’s Design Excellence Program and has served on numerous design award juries including the National AIA Institute Honor Awards jury and the National Endowment for the Arts Design Stewardship Panel. Phil is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a LEED Accredited Professional and the 2009 recipient of the AIA Thomas Jefferson Award for Public architecture.