Louis Armstrong Center

The Louis Armstrong Center is a cultural anchor dedicated to performance, education, and scholarship. It serves as the permanent home of the world’s largest jazz archive dedicated to a single performer—over 60,000 artifacts from Louis Armstrong’s life—and includes a 75-seat venue for concerts, lectures, films, and community gatherings. Located across from Armstrong’s historic home and garden, the 14,000-square-foot building completes a cultural campus in the heart of a working-class Queens neighborhood. Led by Sara Caples and Everardo Jefferson, principals in a women-and minority-led practice—whose staff is 67% women—the project reflects a collaborative approach that centers care, community, inclusivity—values that define “Built by Women.” There was broad involvement of women across all sectors of the project: client, design and construction teams. Women were pivotal at all levels in translating Armstrong’s universal love of music into architecture. The building’s welcoming canopy and front façade create a civic threshold—an urban forecourt that feels both generous and neighborly. Scaled to the surrounding two-story homes, it honors the modest setting while announcing a place of global cultural importance. Inside, visitors move through daylight-filled gathering and exhibition spaces before reaching the second-floor archive, reading room, and conservation studio overlooking a green roof. The deep-red Jazz Room, inspired by Armstrong’s own aesthetic, is the emotional heart of the Center—inviting audiences into live performances and open rehearsals that keep his legacy alive. By intertwining architecture, memory, and community, the Louis Armstrong Center honors one of America’s most influential artists while serving as a welcoming space built through the leadership, vision, and persistence of women in architecture.