The next generation of architects, many of whom were trained in the offices of these and other Gentile architects, included a number of Utah’s native sons and recent converts to the LDS Church. Among the most notable was Taylor Woolley, who, after working briefly for Ware and Treganza, apprenticed in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park studio. He was invited in 1909 to join Wright in Fiesole, Italy, where he worked on the architect’s famous Wasmuth Portfolio, a lithographic record of Wright’s notable designs. The need for a professional organization of architects in Utah coincided with a state-imposed registration procedure for the profession. The earliest roster of architects is dated June 1911 and consisted of a large number of well-known architect-builders and architects. The majority came from Salt Lake City; however, a number also represented such cities as Provo, Logan and Ogden. The earliest professional organization — the Utah Association of Architects — was established in 1911. In 1919, the professional community was invited to the “Institute of Utah Architects” first annual dinner at the Newhouse Hotel, hosted by President Walter E. Ware. It is unclear whether this was simply a renaming of the earlier organization or a new professional group. In 1921, Utah received its charter for the Utah Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The chapter’s territory included all of Utah as well as 32 counties of Idaho. Its 15 members, all of whom were members of the earlier professional organizations, were simultaneously members of the AIA. Membership grew very slowly in the 1920s, and very few of the members were Idaho architects. The membership dipped in the 1930s and early 1940s due to the Great Depression and war years. By the end of the 1940s, membership nearly tripled, no doubt due to the postwar economic recovery. In 1942, Salt Lake architect Raymond J. Ashton was designated as the second fellow of the Utah chapter, and the following year he was nominated president of the national AIA at its annual meeting in Cincinnati. In the 1920s, numerous firms with a new generation of architects were established; however, many of these would be reorganized during the Depression years. One firm among several that successfully survived the late 1920s and 1930s was that of Carl W. Scott and George W. Welch. One of their notable achievements in the 1920s was the planning and design of an entire new community for the Utah Copper Company. Copperton, on the west side of the Salt Lake valley, represents the 1920s version of the company town, complete with schools, recreation facilities and stuccoed masonry houses highlighted with copper decorative motifs. Scott and Welch went on to design schools, libraries and public buildings throughout Utah as a result of the New Deal’s W.P.A. program. A formal architectural education for Utahns still remained a problem through the 1930s and early 1940s. No Utah institution of higher learning offered a professional architecture program. Some aspiring architects took the engineering curriculum at the University of Utah, followed by an apprenticeship in a local architectural firm; others left the state for architectural programs at such institutions as the University of California at Berkeley or the University of Oregon. Many others undertook the long road of the office apprenticeship and spent a decade or more in the drafting rooms of various firms before gaining eligibility for registration. Architect and educator Roger Bailey’s founding of the Department of Architecture at the University of Utah in 1949 helped solve the problem. Bailey was inculcated with the Beaux Arts approach to design at Cornell University. Upon graduation, he spent several years working in various New York architectural firms. In 1922, he won the prestigious Paris Prize Competition and immediately headed for Paris. He remained in Europe for three years, during which time he traveled extensively on the continent. After additional work in New York offices, he joined the faculty of the School of Architecture at the University of Michigan, where he claimed his real education in architecture took place. While traveling west with his wife during the summer of 1948, he happened to stop at the University of Utah and inquire of President A. Ray Olpin why the university did not have an architectural program. Less than half a year later, he was engaged in building such a program for 45 students who had registered to take architectural classes in the basement of the university’s Park Building. The first graduates of the program entered the practice of architecture during the 1950s. Roger Bailey’s untiring efforts to provide a quality education for future architects in the Intermountain West is a benchmark in the history of the profession and simultaneously marks the culmination of the first century of the practice of architecture in Utah. 1. Peter L. Goss, “Architecture at the Turn of the Century,” Utah Historical Quarterly 54 (Winter, 1986); and Peter L. Goss, “Toward an Architectural Tradition,” Utah Historical Quarterly 43 (Summer 1975). This article by Peter L. Goss, Ph.D., is reprinted courtesy of the University of Utah Press. This article was printed in a hardcover book published by the University of Utah Press in 1994. Original book edited by Allen Kent Powell and slightly edited for clarification for this publication. Originally published by: University of Utah Press J. Willard Marriott Library 295 S. 1500 E., Ste. 5400 Salt Lake City, Utah 84112 16 REFLEXION
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