The Tougaloo College (3 linear feet, 638 drawings; 1963-1981) series includes three linear feet of textual records and 638 drawings associated with three projects, the Tougaloo College Master Plan, 1965, and the Tougaloo College Library and Dormitories A and B, designed in 1966 and completed in 1972. The design of the Master Plan and buildings was driven by the optimism of the mid-1960s Civil Rights Movement, which predicted that Tougaloo College would grow from a student body of 500 to 2500 and would become the premier educational institution for African Americans in the country. In his own conceptual statement from GA Architect 2: Gunnar Birkerts and Associates (1982), Mr. Birkerts states: It is our belief that a plan should be developed which will impart, through simplicity and honesty in materials and forms, an image that would belong to Tougaloo alone - becoming a symbol for its future. I consider the commission to plan Touglaoo College as one of the most significant and challenging architectural commissions of this age.
Tougaloo College, founded in 1869 in Jackson, Mississippi, invited Gunar Birkerts to design the Master Plan with a grant from the Cummins Engine Foundation of Columbus, Indiana. The Foundation had underwritten the architectural fees of Gunnar Birkerts and Associates for the design of Lincoln Elementary School in 1965. The Master Plan subseries documentation within the Tougaloo College series includes one-half of a linear foot of textual records and 173 drawings, giving researchers a picture of the issues affecting the architectural design process during this turbulent era in Civil Rights history. With the intent of preparing students from predominantly rural backgrounds for a future in an urban world, the architect envisioned a flexible "layered city", a tiered concentration of circulation, academic and housing spaces, which would allow for future expansion to accommodate up to 2500 students. The optimism of the mid-1960s inspired Mr. Birkerts' visionary design of overlapping systems of linear academic and residential structures for Tougaloo College. However, the political climate of this era also resulted in the abandonment of the total Plan when private and federal funding failed to materialize and fewer African American students enrolled in black colleges. Only the Library and Dormitories A and B were built.
