In 1954, Robert P. Madison, a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, opened his office for the practice of architecture on E. 105 th Street, and began a career that has spanned more than half a century and garnered him honorary degrees from four universities and numerous awards, prizes, medals and honors. Yet for all the local, national and international accolades bestowed upon him, he remains a down-to-earth man who's firmly rooted in his faith; firmly committed to making Cleveland a better place to live; and – most important of all – firmly committed to training and mentoring the next generation of African American architects, engineers and planners.

In a late afternoon interview in his sunny and – he's the first to admit – work-cluttered Mid-Town office, he shared insights into how his past shaped who he is today, how he's stayed at the forefront of architectural design, and his time-tested tips for aging successfully.

Where were you born and raised?

I was born in Cleveland – my maternal grandmother lived in Cleveland , and my parents came here for my birth – but I was raised in the South: Selma , Alabama , Columbia , South Carolina , and Washington , DC . I came full circle when it was time for high school. My parents moved back to Cleveland and I graduated from East Technical High School with honors in math, science and architecture.

You essentially came of age during the Depression. How do you think that shaped the person you have become.

It wasn't only the Depression. I'm a product – as all people are – of my parents. My father and mother came along a couple of generations after the emancipation proclamation. My mother was a graduate of Morris Brown College in Atlanta and a devout Christian. My father graduated from Howard University in Washington , DC with a degree in civil engineering. I will never know why he chose engineering; however he was a brilliant scholar, but could not find employment.

After I was born, the family moved to the South, where my father was a professor at Selma University and my brother, Julian, was born. A few years later, he [his father] accepted an appointment to teach at Benedict College in Columbia , South Carolina , where my brother Stanley was born. So, when I was very young, I was a very privileged child.

…In 1930, my father accepted an appointment as a civil engineer in Washington , DC [where brother Bernard was born], however that was the height of the Depression. He was the last hired and the first to be fired.

…People grew up very fast during the Depression. We became a very tight family. By the time I was 10, I was helping take care of my brothers as well as selling newspapers, shining shoes, and whatever I could to help.

But that was also when I developed a strong belief, due to my mother's influence, that things were always going to be challenging and to always keep the faith.

3. What got you interested in architecture?

I liked to draw – a lot. One day – I think I must have been six years old – I came home from school and my mother saw this picture I'd drawn of a sailboat. She said “That's a lovely drawing son. You are going to be an architect.”

I said “Yes mother.” I didn't have the slightest idea what an architect was.

Where did you study?

I started at Howard University in 1940 because it was my father's school, it had a School of Architecture , and I had a scholarship – from East Tech – for tuition, room and board.

…Then World War II started. I'll never forget December 7 th . We were in the design studio when we heard on the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed and we were at war with Japan . All male students at Howard were enrolled in basic ROTC, Reserve Officer Training Corps. I immediately signed up for advanced ROTC.

…I was appointed commander of the ROTC Cadet Corps. There was a young lady [Pointing over his shoulder at a picture of his wife, Leatrice] at the time on campus that I was trying my best to impress, so I called out all the ROTC cadets to have a parade, and as the troops marched past and saluted me, she smiled, but wasn't impressed at all.

After military training at army camps and officer training at Ft. Benning , Georgia , I went to Ft. Huachuca , Arizona , in May of 1944 to join the 92 nd Infantry Division, the Buffalo Soldiers. In July of 1944 the division was ordered to duty in the Italian Campaign, I celebrated my 21 st birthday on the high seas, and we landed at Naples , Italy .

...I was serving as battalion intelligence officer when we went into combat at the Arno River just north of Pisa . We were in combat for four months when I was wounded in action on December 26 th , 1944, by a German cannon at Gallicano, a small town in the Po Valley. When I was discharged from the hospital the war had ended in Europe, but we continued military training in anticipation of going to Japan .

In the meantime, I enrolled in the University of Pisa to study architecture. I visited all the architectural monuments of Italy that I could. And I went to a lot of opera.

I came back to Cleveland in June of 1946.

And when you got home?

I knew Western Reserve had a good architecture program; I liked the idea of being at home and going to school; and I had the GI Bill, too, so I went to the university to talk about enrolling in the program there. The Dean of the School of Architecture told me I wouldn't be accepted into the program and that there had never been anyone who was ‘colored' graduate from the school and that he doubted that there ever would be. And even if someone like me was accepted into a program, he said there wouldn't be any jobs for them when they graduated.

Three days later I went back – in my uniform, with my Purple Heart and my battle ribbons. This time I talked to the Dean of Admissions, and I told him that I'd left my blood on the soil of Italy fighting to preserve democracy and that I didn't see why I couldn't enter this architecture school.

He was impressed. He called someone on the faculty of the architecture school to look at the drawings I'd brought with me and he told the Dean my work was good enough for Western Reserve . But they still didn't say yes. Every Saturday I had to go to the college for tests: physics, calculus, geometry, English, etc.

The day before classes were supposed to start – in the fall of 1946 – they called me and told me that I should be there the next day.

I accelerated things as much as I could. In my final year – 1948 – I took nine subjects and got my degree. I also won honorable mention in an international competition [the Beaux Arts Prix de Rome] and my undergraduate thesis won the Jansen Book Prize.

Then reality set in: I walked the streets looking for a job. My first position was with Robert A. Little, one of the faculty at the architecture school. While I was working for him, my wife, Leatrice, whom I married in 1949, told me about the Master's in Architecture program at Harvard.

…While I studied at Harvard, Leatrice worked in the Graduate School of Design Library, where she ran across an item about a Fulbright Scholarship for further study. She's always been one for higher education.

I applied for the program in October of '51 and graduated in June of '52 as president of my class. The Fulbright, to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris , was awarded in late June. And our first daughter, Jeanne Marie, was born in July.

We had a baby and the opportunity to study in Paris . We said “We're going.”

In 1954, at 31, you set up a studio in Cleveland . Where was the studio? What were your first projects?

When we came back from Paris , I worked at Howard teaching architecture. But I kept thinking “There are no firms out there that are going to hire graduates.”

That's when I decided that someone had to set up a practice. I came back to Cleveland in 1954 and set up a studio at 1335 East 105 th Street . [chuckles] The only reason we got through the first year was that Leatrice was teaching school in Cleveland .

My first projects were small. Classmates who were preachers asked me to do work on their churches and classmates who were doctors asked me to work on their offices or their homes.

When Julian graduated from Howard with a degree in engineering, he came to work with me in 1956, and we entered the Ohio Home Design Competition. One or our projects placed third, another won an honorable mention.

Then we became the official architects for the African Methodist Episcopal Church, building churches in Little Rock , in Niagra Falls , in Jamaica , Columbus , Cleveland – all over.

By the mid-'70s, we were doing the kinds of projects [museums, schools, community centers, etc.] we are doing regularly now. When people saw how we performed, what we produced, that's when our company took off. We weren't successful just because we were persistent; we were successful because clients realized that we strove for excellence.

If you had to pick one project to be remembered for, out of all the projects you've done in the last 53 years, which one would it be?

It would be the United States Embassy Office Building in Dakar , Senegal [in 1965]. My ancestors left Senegal in chains. To go back there to design that building – on the soil where my ancestors were enslaved – was a formidable coming together of the past and the present.

You've helped launch the careers of over 200 African American architects and engineers. As you mentor your protégées along, what are the most important things you share with them?

The knowledge that they have to believe in themselves, that they have to be prepared, that they have to be persistent, and that they have to be patient. I went to Howard and Western Reserve and Harvard and studied in Paris so that I could say “There aren't many who are better prepared at what I do than I am.”

How do you stay mentally and creatively fresh, current, on top of things in your work and life?

First of all, I've got a real joie d' vive . There isn't any other way to put it: I love life.

And, [tapping a pile of magazines and journals on his desk] I read as much as I can about contemporary architecture. I don't want anyone to ever say that there aren't any African American architects who are up to designing something [pointing to picture of the Browns football stadium] that big.

I'm not doing that for me. It's for the younger people who are coming along. They are going to have an example, someone who takes on the big projects.

On my own time, I'm an opera nut and a reader. I've got at least five books on the shelf that I want to read. I love history and just finished David McCullough's 1776 , about George Washington's campaign against the British.

Architecture is a stressful, competitive occupation. Over the years, what have you been doing to balance work stress and the rest of your life?

I think I'm lucky. My blood pressure is like this [waving hand at chest level], while everyone else's is way up here [waving hand over his head].

I don't think I have problems with stress because I love what I'm doing. When there is stress, I relieve it by getting to work on a project. When I'm working on a project, the whole world can crumble around me and I don't notice.

Physically, you're very fit and trim. Since you have an extremely sedentary job, how do you stay in such good shape?

I'll be 84 this coming July, so thanks for saying that.

I watch my eating: I believe in moderation.

I used to play a lot of tennis. I had to give that up when my knees gave out on me. That's when I switched to golf.

Staying “fit” isn't so much about being physically active, it's about staying productive. For me, that means designing buildings.

Both you and your wife are well-known in the volunteer world. What kind of volunteer work are you involved in?

My secretary will tell you I'm doing too much.

I belong to a lot of different organizations, but my real favorites are the Cleveland Opera and the Cleveland Orchestra, where I serve on both boards. I needle them – if you will – about the need to have more people who look like me performing.

And I try to work with kids – young kids – to get them to realize that they can be musicians, architects, poets, whatever they want, and are willing to work, to be.

I'm in a fraternity, Sigma Pi Phi, that's going into the schools to do presentations. [Laughs] To be a role model for young people, I'll go anywhere they'll have me.

In a nutshell, what's your advice for successful aging?

Number one: Have an endeavor that you really like, something that you really enjoy, something that is rewarding, that gives you personal pleasure. And keep doing it till you become the best you can be at it…When you really enjoy something, you have a raison d'etre , a reason to exist.

Number two: Realize that life is about moderation in whatever you do.

Number three: Get out and be with people. When you enjoy being with people it helps take the pressure and stress out of your life.

And finally: Have a sense of humor about yourself. If you can joke, and joke about yourself, you can open up to others. And that kind of ‘sharing' is important. What good is a person if they don't do that, if they don't pass on things they know. That's why my wife and I are so active in the community. It's why we established a scholarship – the Robert P. Madison Scholarship – for students. It's our way of helping them move on into the future.