Paul Thiry (architect)

Thiry was born in Nome, Alaska, of French parents. He was a 1928 graduate of the architecture school at the University of Washington and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in France. He traveled in Europe and met Le Corbusier, before returning to Seattle in 1935.Caroline T. Swope [https://books.google.com/books?id=IyMOP22JK0sC&pg=PT203 Classic houses of Seattle]: high style to vernacular, 1870-1950 He also traveled to and worked in Japan.{{cite book |last1=Woodbridge |first1=Sally B. and Roger Montgomery |title=A Guide to Architecture in Washington State |date=1980 |publisher=University of Washington Press |location=Seattle}}

Thiry designed his own house upon his return but had few commissions in the 1930s. Those he built "showed a clear understanding of the European International Style in his use of spare, geometric forms, clean lines, and new building technologies."Jan Goggans, Aaron DiFranco [https://books.google.com/books?id=dlnkG6q318oC&dq=Paul+Thiry+architect&pg=PA12] page 12 The Pacific region

File:KeyArena Seattle.jpg, built originally as the Washington State Pavilion for the Century 21 Exposition.]]

Thiry came to national attention in 1937 with a cement-based stuccoed residence for a manager at Portland Cement, Frank J. Barrett. The innovative house was published in The Modern House in America in 1940: the garage and house formed two rectangles, with a "smooth, undecorated exterior", its doors and windows flush with the surface. Steel window frames were painted blue-green, and glass-brick was used around the entry and along the walls of the partly sunken living room.

Thiry served as supervising architect for the Seattle World's Fair,Walt Crowley, Paul Dorpat [https://books.google.com/books?id=I7O3laf_MUgC&dq=Paul+Thiry+architect&pg=RA1-PA126 National Trust Guide, Seattle]: America's guide for architecture and history travelers Preservation Press Series, John Wiley and Sons, 1998 {{ISBN|0-471-18044-0}}, {{ISBN|978-0-471-18044-9}} responsible for the overall plan and coordinating the work of contributors like John Graham Jr. (for the Space Needle), Minoru Yamasaki, and the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. Thiry's own designs for the fair included the Washington State Pavilion, which later became the KeyArena and is today the Climate Pledge Arena.

Thiry has been compared to other modernists in the Northwest such as Pietro Belluschi (1899–1994) and John Yeon (1910–1994). Thiry is quoted as having said that "Buildings should be good neighbors."The Theory of Architecture: Concepts Themes & Practices By Paul-Alan Johnson page 226 He is credited with being "instrumental" to introducing International Style architecture in Seattle.

File:L&C Flanagan Chapel.JPG on the Lewis and Clark College campus, the site of various religious services and weddings]]

File:Seattle St D 01.jpg, 1964–1968, Seattle, Washington]]

Thiry designed the Agnes Flanagan Chapel, the Aubrey Watzek Library, and the Biology-Psychology Building{{Cite web | url=http://www.lclark.edu/live/files/6157-cas-catalogcampus-buildingspdf | title=Campus Buildings | website=www.lclark.edu}} at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.

The Flanagan chapel is "a creatively designed 16-sided structure" with an 85-rank Casavant Frères organ and seating for 600 people. According to the Lewis and Clark website the building "serves as a meeting place for lectures, musical performances, and religious services. The entry is a bridge flanked by Northwest Coast Indian-style statues depicting the four evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) created by the artist Lelooska, Don Morse Smith.{{cite web |title=Pendant |url=https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/object/NMAI_272258 |website=National Museum of the American Indian |access-date=3 September 2024}}[http://legacy.lclark.edu/dept/vtour/chapel.html Virtual tour] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091029040631/http://legacy.lclark.edu/dept/vtour/chapel.html |date=2009-10-29 }} Lewis and Clark College website

• Apartment building, 2717 Franklin Avenue E, Seattle, WA (1929)
• Paul Thiry residence, 330 35th Avenue E, Seattle, WA (1935–1936)
• Frank J. Barrett residence (1937)
• Nichols House, 1600 Boston Terrace E, Seattle, WA (1939)
• Thiry architectural office, 800 Columbia Street, Seattle, WA (1946)
• Electrical Engineering Building, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (1948)
• Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI) (1952) at 2700 24th Avenue East in Seattle, Washington [https://web.archive.org/web/20120304115521/http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=%2Farchpnw&CISOPTR=17802&CISOBOX=1&REC=6 Museum of History and Industry (Seattle, Washington) photograph] University of Oregon Libraries{{Cite web|url=https://mohai.org|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060909033642/http://www.seattlehistory.org/|url-status=dead |title=Museum of History and Industry — MOHAI|archivedate=September 9, 2006|website=mohai.org}}
• Northeast Branch Library, 6801 35th Avenue NE, Seattle, WA (1954)
• Regents Hill (originally "New Women's Dormitory"), Washington State University, Pullman, Washington (1952)
• Frye Art Museum (1952) at 704 Terry Avenue in Seattle (later remodeled and expanded)
• Washington State Library, Olympia, Washington, 1959
• Western Washington University campus plan, Bellingham, WA (1959-1963)
• U.S. Embassy Residence, Santiago, Chile, 1961
• Nalley's Fine Food pavilion (1961) "The Nalley's Fine Food pavilion was a plastic form shell pneumatically applied on a frame of reinforcing rods and metal lathe. The exterior of the pavilion was constructed without a straight line or sharp angle. The unique oval contained a theater which showed movies of the great Pacific Northwest. In the lobby of the building were displays of the food products from Nalley's Tacoma-based company. Image courtesy University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections Division." [http://www.vintageseattle.org/ Vintage Seattle]
• supervising architect for Seattle's Century 21 Exposition, along with his own design for the Washington State Pavilion, now the Climate Pledge Arena (1961)
• St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, Seattle, WA (1964)
• Delta Upsilon chapter house, Washington Chapter, Seattle, Washington (1967).
• Watzek Library (1968) and the Agnes Flanagan Chapel (1969) at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon[https://web.archive.org/web/20120304115512/http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=%2Farchpnw&CISOPTR=9926&CISOBOX=1&REC=7 Watzek Library photograph] Photo ID mdr07676 University of Oregon Libraries[https://web.archive.org/web/20120304115526/http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=%2Farchpnw&CISOPTR=9914&CISOBOX=1&REC=5 Flanagan, Agnes, Chapel (Portland, Oregon) photograph] Flanagan, Agnes, Chapel (Portland, Oregon) University of Oregon Libraries
• concrete sanctuary addition to the North Slope section, Christ Episcopal Church, Tacoma, Washington (1970)
• consulting architect for the Libby Dam project, Libby, Montana (1975)

• Churches and Temples with Richard Bennett and Henry Kamphoefner, Rheinhold Publishing, 1953Mark Allen Torgerson [https://books.google.com/books?id=zGsv_2Pu5JsC&q=Thiry&pg=PT126 An architecture of immanence]: architecture for worship and ministry today Calvin Institute of Christian Worship liturgical studies series Edition illustrated Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007 {{ISBN|0-8028-3209-1}}, {{ISBN|978-0-8028-3209-2}}, 313 pages, page 112

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{{commons category|Paul Thiry (architect)}}

• [http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=9383 Biography] at HistoryLink
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120304115506/http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISORESTMP=results.php&CISOVIEWTMP=item_viewer.php&CISOMODE=thumb&CISOGRID=thumbnail,A,1;title,A,1;creato,A,0;subjec,200,0;donor,A,0;20;title,none,none,none,none&CISOBIB=title,A,1,N;descra,A,0,N;sourca,200,0,N;none,A,0,N;none,A,0,N;20;title,none,none,none,none&CISOTHUMB=20%20(5x4);title,none,none,none,none&CISOTITLE=20;title,none,none,none,none&CISOHIERA=20;descra,title,none,none,none&CISOSUPPRESS=1&CISOTYPE=link&CISOOP1=exact&CISOFIELD1=creata&CISOBOX1=Thiry,+Paul&c=exact&CISOROOT=%2Farchpnw University of Oregon Libraries photographs] of the Agnes Flanagan Chapel and Watzek Library at Lewis and Clark College and the Museum of History and Industry (Seattle, Washington)

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Category:1904 births

Category:1993 deaths

Category:Fellows of the American Institute of Architects

Category:Modernist architects from the United States

Category:American ecclesiastical architects

Category:Architects from Seattle

Category:University of Washington College of Built Environments alumni

Category:Century 21 Exposition

Category:National Academy of Design members

Category:20th-century American architects

Category:People from Nome, Alaska

Category:American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts