J. Max Bond Jr. (1935-2009) was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He was the son of James Max Bond, Sr., who served as the President of the University of Liberia during the 1950s, and Ruth Elizabeth Clement Bond. In 1951, Bond entered Harvard College as one of 11 African Americans out of 1100 admitted students. He graduated magna cum laude in June 1955 with a degree in Architectural Science, and then pursued study at the Graduate School of Design. Despite having faced challenges as a minority student, he obtained a Master of Architecture in 1958.

Following graduation, Bond initially traveled to Tunisia before settling in France to work with André Wogenscky at Le Corbusier’s studio in 1958. Two years later, Bond moved to New York where he married writer Jean Carey Bond in 1961. Together, they moved again in 1964 to Accra, Ghana, where Bond worked as an architect for the Ghana National Construction Company. It was in Kumasi, Ghana that he launched his teaching career at the University of Science and Technology.

Bond and his family returned to New York in 1967, where he helped establish the Architect’s Renewal Committee in Harlem (ARCH), one of the first community design centers. He began teaching at Columbia GSAPP only a year later, and eventually served as the Chairman Division of Architecture from 1980-1984. After GSAPP, Bond served as the Dean of the School of Architecture and Environmental Studies at City College of New York until 1991.

Bond co-founded the architecture practice Bond Ryder Associates with Donald P. Ryder in 1969, which focused on medium- and high-density urban housing; urban planning and design; university, religious, and community complexes. Among many notable projects, he served as the design architect for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center and Dr. King’s entombment, completed in 1982. The firm was renamed Bond Ryder James, Architects, P.C. in 1983, and their work includes the Schomburg Center in New York; Studio Museum in Harlem; several housing developments; Permanent Mission of India to the U.N.; Birmingham Civil Rights Institute; and the Housing Study Choice and Flexibility in Housing for Battery Park City.

In 1994, the firm (now Davis Brody Bond) served as the associate architect for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center. Bond was the partner in charge of the museum at the time of his death of cancer at the age of 73 on February 18, 2009.

Bond’s numerous accolades include an Honorary Doctorate from New Jersey Institute of Technology, membership with the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Award for Architecture from the Atlanta Urban Design Commission for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center; 1987 Whitney M. Young, Jr. Citation Award from the American Institute of Architects; and the Harry B. Rutkins Memorial Award for Service the Profession from the New York Chapter of the AIA.