Rick Lowe of Project Row Houses at Harvard Design School Class Day 2015

The founder of Houston’s Project Row Houses is a pioneer in social-practice art.

Rick Lowe

Rick Lowe, a pioneering public artist, will speak at the Harvard Graduate School of Design Class Day on May 27. Lowe, a 2002 Loeb Fellow at the GSD, is best known for his two decades of work with Project Row Houses (PRH). He founded the community arts and culture nonprofit, located in Houston’s northern Third Ward, after he and a group of fellow artists purchased a group of rundown “shotgun” row houses in one of the city’s oldest African-American neighborhoods in 1993. In the decades since, PRH has put art at the center of a transformative community project that includes exhibition, studio, mentoring, and residential programs.

In recognition of his work, Lowe was named a 2014 MacArthur Fellow. He has put his model of arts-based community revitalization into practice in other cities across the country—including redevelopment projects in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles and post-Katrina New Orleans. Originally trained as a painter, Lowe has been an artist-in-residence at Dallas’s Nasher Sculpture Center and a Mel King Community Fellow at MIT.

You might also like

Harvard Commencement 2025

Harvard passes a test of its values, yet challenges loom.

Alumni Cheer on Harvard

At Alumni Day, ringing endorsements of Harvard’s fight

Paula Johnson at Harvard Medical School Convocation

Amid distrust of science, Paula Johnson tells medical and dental graduates to be “citizen-physicians.”

Most popular

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Why Heat Waves Make You Miserable

Scientists are studying how much heat and humidity the human body can take.

Harvard Panel Debunks the Population Implosion Myth

Public health professors parse the evidence surrounding falling U.S. birth rates.

Explore More From Current Issue

Johnston Gate

Your Views on Harvard’s Standoff, Antisemitism, and More

Readers comment on the controversial July-August cover, authoritarianism, and scientific research.

Book cover of "Black Moses" by Caleb Gayle with subtitle about ambition and the fight for a Black state.

Civil Rights in the American West

A new book chronicles one man’s quest for a Black state.

Room filled with furniture made from tightly rolled newspaper sheets.

A Paper House in Massachusetts

The 1920s Rockport cottage reflects resourceful ingenuity.