Center to consolidate advocacy, education for SC architecture.

Preserving South Carolina's architectural heritage is one mission of the South Carolina Architectural Foundation and the state chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and a new showplace designed to highlight that ongoing work couldn't have a more appropriate home.

The Center for Architectural Design, housed at 1530 Main St. in downtown Columbia, is the product of a years-long vision to increase visibility of the architectural profession in the state. Before the S.C. AIA chapter purchased the building, currently undergoing renovations with an eye toward a late fall opening, there was no real center for architectural outreach and education to take place.

Since the early 1980s, the organization had operated out of "The Cottage," a small structure on Bull Street nestled among law firms. Inspired by larger AIA chapters with a more centralized, noticeable presence around the country, including one in Raleigh, AIA S.C. decided to change that.

"We made the commitment in 2014 that we were going to look for something more prominent, both from an advocacy/lobbying standpoint with the Statehouse but also from the standpoint of where the public could see architecture in South Carolina," said Ben Ward, project manager at McMillan Pazdan Smith and 2022 president of AIA S.C.

In 2015, AIA S.C. purchased the former Eckerd Drug Store building, where a significant moment in the state's history took place in 1960. Allen University student Simon Bouie and Benedict College student Talmadge Neal were arrested, jailed and convicted for refusing to leave the Eckerd lunch counter, where they were denied service because they are Black.

Those events became the basis for a landmark 1964 civil rights case which, coupled with another lunch-counter case at the nearby Taylor Street Pharmacy, led to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the students' convictions, saying their right to due process under the 14th Amendment had been violated. Days later, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial segregation in public facilities.

"Based on historical photographs of the incident, we actually located the two (counter) stool spots," Ward said. "In the terrazzo floor, you could see the outline of where the drug store counter was, and then you could see the circles where the stools were bolted to the floor."

The old Eckerd Drug Store played a pivotal role, recognized with a historical marker outside the structure, in Columbia history. But like the civil...