Harwell Hamilton Harris Architectural Drawings and Photographs 1936-1964

Harwell Hamilton Harris was born in 1903 in Redlands, California. Harris originally trained to be a sculptor but decided to change to architecture upon seeing the work of Frank Lloyd Wright. While never formally trained as an architect, Harris apprenticed with the noted modernists Richard Neutra and Rudolf Schindler. Harris established his own practice in Los Angeles in 1933 and maintained it for nearly twenty years, with only a one-year gap in 1943, when he taught at Columbia University. During this time, he married Jean Murray Bangs and she remained an important influence on his work until her death.

In 1952, Harris became the Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin. Though lacking both formal training and administrative experience, Harris was able to hire a number of new faculty members, bringing an important modernist flare to the school. Internal tensions caused Harris to resign in 1955, at which time he moved to Dallas, Texas. In 1962, he accepted a teaching position at North Carolina State University, where he taught until his retirement. In North carolina, Harris became a close friend of Architect href="https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/mc00451/summary"Frank Harmon FAIA who was his student and later became executor of his estate. In addition to his work in the academy, Harris is remembered for his influential modernist-style architectural works in California, Texas, and North Carolina.

Harris was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (1965) and a recipient of the Richard Neutra Medal for Professional Excellence (1982). In 1985, North Carolina State University awarded him an honorary doctorate. At his death in 1990, he donated his private collections and drawings to all the universities at which he had worked, with the majority going to the University of Texas. The Harris Lecture Series at North Carolina State University is named in his honor.

The Harwell Hamilton Harris Architectural Drawings and Photographs consist of blueprints and architectural drawings including sketches that document residences located in North Carolina, Texas, and California. Included are also digitized oversized poster boards which do not exist in physical form and are only digitally available.

Items are arranged in the order in which they were received.

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[Identification of item], Harwell Hamilton Harris Architectural Drawings and Photographs, MC 00433, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC

Gift of the Triangle Modernist Houses Archives, 2011 (Accession nos. 2011.0267, 2011.0271).

Processed by Emily Walters, 2012 January; Finding aid written by Tish Wiggs, 2012 January; Finding aid updated by Shima Hosseininasab, 2021 September.

This collection was processed with support from the Council on Library and Information Resources Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives program.