Since 2011, this mural by D.C.-based artist Sam Gilliam has been installed right outside the Takoma Metro station. The 14-feet-by-39-feet, 2,000-pound mosaic was commissioned by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities in cooperation with the Metro Art in Transit Program. In a statement, Gilliam said, “I wanted to make a work that is part of its environment, yet changes that environment. A work filled with color and light.” Gilliam is internationally recognized as the foremost contemporary African American Color Field painter.

Opened in August 2014, this $1.8 million park serves as a tribute to Chuck Brown, the godfather of Go-Go music. The entire park spans 42,000 square feet with plenty of benches for lounging around. The architect behind this park was Michael Marshall, the same designer behind D.C.’s Audi Field and the student center at the University of the District of Columbia.

Albert Irvin Cassell has a long history with Howard University, serving as campus planner and architect during the 1920s and 1930s. One of his most famous buildings is the University’s Founders Library, which opened in 1939 as the largest and most extensive research facility at a historically black university. In March 2016, the non-profit National Trust for Historic Preservation named the library a national treasure.

According to D.C. Preservation League Executive Director Rebecca Miller, this building is worth an inclusion on this list as it was designed in 1903 by John Anderson Lankford, the first African-American to be registered as an architect in Washington, D.C. The building was the first in the nation to be designed, financed, built, and owned by the African-American community after Reconstruction.

D.C. Preservation League Executive Director Rebecca Miller suggested to Curbed DC that this building be included on this list as it was designed by William Sidney Pittman, a world-renowned architect with works that included the first Fairmount Heights school and the Garfield Elementary Public School. Pittman was also the first African American to design a YMCA building. Founded in 1853, this was also the first YMCA open to African-Americans in the world.

When this mural was installed in Shaw in 2014, artist Aneikan Udofia told DCist, “I do like the idea of it being ‘reborn.’ So I would call it ‘The soulful return of Marvin Gaye.’” This “reborn” idea is based off of the fact that a previous mural in Shaw depicting Marvin Gaye, created by Udofia, was covered by construction. With this new mural, Udofia said, “I added more soul to it.”

Designed by a joint venture between Marshall Purnell, the first African-American president of the American Institute of Architects, and Paul Devrouax, Capital One Arena opened in December 1997. When it opened under the name MCI Center, it was known as “perhaps the biggest bet yet on downtown.” This was the first major sports facility to be built in the city since Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium opened in 1961. It has since undergone two name changes, from MCI Center to the Verizon Center to Capital One Arena.

After winning an international competition in April 2009, lead designer David Adjaye and lead architect Philip Freelon, together with their architectural team Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup, designed the Smithsonian’s latest museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). The museum opened in September 2016 with a theater and displays on subjects that include sports, visual and performing arts, business, education, and the African slave trade. For more information on the design of the building, see Alexandra Lange’s architecture column on Curbed here.