Photo courtesy of the Stull family
Donald Stull, one of Boston’s pioneering Black architects who left a lasting mark on Boston’s built environment, has died at age 83.
Stull passed away at his Milton home Nov. 28, according to an obituary published in the Boston Globe Thursday.
Stull, an Ohio native, graduated from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 1962, and four years later founded his firm, Stull Assoc., later Stull and Lee, Inc.
Over its many decades in existence, the firm became regionally and nationally known for its work in architecture and urban design. Stull also was a leading voice in seeking to bring attention to the unique contributions of African American architects and urban designers, helping found the New DesigNation conference in 1996.
Stull and his partner David Lee together were responsible for iconic buildings in neighborhoods across Boston, including many key pieces of civic infrastructure. Stull and Lee designed the John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute at Roxbury Community College, the Boston Police Department’s Tremont Street headquarters, the mammoth Ruggles MBTA Orange Line station and bus terminal, the recently-demolished Harriet Tubman Center and the Central Artery Tunnel Ventilation Building 7, whose instantly-recognizable, sharply angled exhaust stacks tower over Summer Street and the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in the Seaport District.
Perhaps Stull’s most important contribution, however was the design for the Southwest Corridor Park, which then-Gov. Frank Sargent commissioned him and Lee to work with residents to design as a replacement for the failed Southwest Expressway through Jamaica Plain and Roxbury. The 50-acre linear park stretches along the Orange Line and Amtrak tracks from Back Bay Station to Forrest Hills and combines bicycle and pedestrian paths with playgrounds and basketball and tennis courts. The park, now considered a neighborhood gem, has been honored with the Von Moltke award for excellence in urban design, the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence and a National Endowment for the Arts Federal Design Achievement Award.
Stull is survived by his sister, three children and two grandchildren.
