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An aerial perspective of Transform 1012 looking south.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Transform 1012<\/p>\n
A few years ago, when I\u00a0learned of a proposal to take a former Ku Klux Klan meeting house in Fort Worth and remake it as a community center, I did not think it was a good idea. I was familiar with the building, a brooding, derelict structure of tan brick built in 1925 on North Main Street, on the route from downtown to the Stockyards. It is an ugly thing, designed for intimidation.<\/p>\n
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Its location was chosen in part to give pause to minorities from Fort Worth\u2019s\u00a0Northside headed toward the city center. For those who know its history, just passing by produces a sense of unease, raising the specter of a violent, racist past that can seem eerily present.<\/p>\n
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The former Fort Worth headquarters of the Ku Klux Klan.<\/p>\n
Timothy Brestowski\/Courtesy of Transform 1012 N. Main St.<\/p>\n
Even some preservationists considered remaking rather than demolishing the building a bad idea.\u00a0Why waste precious resources on a building designed to terrorize minorities instead of rehabilitating the places that served and were built by those communities?<\/p>\n
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Germane Barnes,<\/a> one of the architects responsible for reimagining the building, had similar reservations, at least at first. \u201cThey need to burn this thing down. That was my initial impulsive reaction,\u201d he says. \u201cWe had so many conversations with community members and elders and people who have seen that building and all of its various forms. And when we finished all of those conversations, it was split right down the middle, fifty-fifty.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n For Dennis Chiessa,<\/a> who first brought Barnes to see the building and is now partnering with him on the project, its fate has been a longtime preoccupation. The Fort Worth native and director<\/a> of the graduate architecture program at the University of Texas at Arlington had taught studio classes that focused on the site and its problematic history. Chief among his concerns was that it would be demolished to make way for generic housing. \u201cThat’s a way of erasing history,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Their design for the building has me convinced that saving \u2014 and reimagining it \u2014 is the right decision. Reborn as the Transform 1012 Center for Arts and Community Healing<\/a>, the 35,000-square-foot cultural hub will have a 250-seat theater, rehearsal studios for theater and dance, educational spaces, craft workshops, an interfaith chapel, a cafe, an outdoor amphitheater and administrative space for local organizations. Construction is scheduled to begin next year with an opening in late 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lobby and gallery\u00a0level of Transform 1012.<\/p>\n Transform 1012<\/p>\n The $50 million project is the initiative of a coalition of nonprofit groups based in Fort Worth, among them DNA Works, SOL Ballet Folklorico, the Welman Project and the Tarrant County Coalition for Peace and Justice.\u00a0Opal Lee<\/a>, the force behind the Juneteenth Museum<\/a>, which is scheduled to open next year on Fort Worth\u2019s Southside, is an emeritus member of Transform 1012\u2019s board.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cThis project provides the opportunity to show truly what restorative justice is through an architectural lens, and how you can take something that has such a raw and awful history and then turn it into something that’s hopeful,\u201d says Barnes, whose Miami-based practice has gained attention for projects that grapple with both\u00a0issues of identity<\/a>\u00a0and the formal language of architecture.\u00a0<\/p>\n Barnes and Chiessa won the project in 2023 in an unusual competition that began not with the submission of a design but a \u201cstatement of values and commitments.\u201d Four teams were selected as finalists and proceeded to meet with community members before presenting a design vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n Transform is the operative word for the\u00a0winning design, which guts the historic structure, turning it into a shell punctured by bright red extrusions. The effect will be to give the previously drab building a sense of dynamic play.\u00a0<\/p>\n The architects have shifted the principal entry off Main Street, moving it to the north side of the building, facing the communities that are its\u00a0primary audience. \u201cWho wants to go in through the front door of a KKK building?\u201d says Chiessa.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n