George Howe (architect)

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For the footballer, see George Howe (footballer).

George Howe (1886-1955), with William Lescaze, was a partner in the influential modernist firm of Howe & Lescaze in Philadelphia, the architects of the landmark PSFS building. The 1929-1932 collaboration between Howe, an American-born Beaux-Arts-trained architect, and Lescaze, a younger Swiss architect who had studied at ETH Zurich and had first hand knowledge of the European avant-garde, yielded one of the first International style skyscrapers built.

George Howe was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1886 to James and Helen Howe. He received his Bachelor of Architecture from Harvard in 1908 and graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in 1912. He worked for the firms of Furness, Evans & Co., and Mellor & Meigs in Philadelphia before serving in the military from 1917 to 1919, during World War I. After leaving Howe & Lescaze in 1932, Howe designed several private residences in the Philadelphia area. Throughout the late 1930s, Howe collaborated with Louis Kahn at the Philadelphia Housing Authority; and again in 1940, along with Oscar Stonorov, on the design of housing developments in other parts of Pennsylvania.

Howe was a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome from 1947 to 1949 and Chair of the Architectural Department at Yale from 1950 to 1954.

[edit] Further reading

• http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/25206

[edit] References

• Curtis, William [1987]. Modern Architecture Since 1900, 2nd Ed., Prentice-Hall, p.157-158. ISBN 013586694. 
• http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Howe_and_Lescaze.html
• http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/25206
• http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/21829
• http://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/ar_display.cfm/21630