The Fayette County Public Library will host Atlanta architect, artist and author Oscar Harris Saturday, Nov. 7, at 1 p.m. for a talk and book signing.
Harris will speak about his life, his career, and his book, titled “Oscar: The Memoir of a Master Architect.” Copies of the book will be available for sale at the event, with proceeds benefiting the Friends of the Fayette County Public Library.
The program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served, compliments of the Friends of the Fayette County Public Library.
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Oscar Harris earned degrees at Lincoln University and Carnegie-Mellon University. In the early 1970s, his master’s thesis on subway system design earned him an invitation to interview and then a job offer from the Atlanta architecture firm that was planning and designing MARTA’s first transit stations. After a few years of instrumental work on the foundations of Atlanta’s new rail system, Harris followed his entrepreneurial dreams and founded his own architecture firm, Turner Associates.
Some of the most iconic and recognizable features of Atlanta’s contemporary streetscape had their origins at Oscar Harris’s drafting table – Zoo Atlanta, Fulton County Government Center, the Atrium at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and the light towers at Centennial Olympic Park, among many others.
Oscar Harris is also the founder of the Atlanta Center for Creative Inquiry, a nonprofit whose mission is to mentor, educate, and develop creative abilities in youth to promote greater diversity in the architecture, engineering and construction professions. With this presentation at the Fayette County Public Library, Harris aims to share with everyone his own story of working for and achieving success as an African American in a notably competitive profession that was almost exclusively white at the time he was getting started. His inspirational journey should be of interest to all.
The Fayette County Public Library is located behind the Fayette County administrative complex in downtown Fayetteville, at the southwest corner of Highways 85 and 54. For additional information, contact the library at 770-461-8841.
