Source: Seattle Times
A new book on the late Seattle architect Lionel Pries goes a long way to restore some of the honor that once surrounded his name.

Pries was one of the region's foremost architectural designers and instructors, an old-school Beaux Arts advocate who also led the way in Northwest modernism, designing some of the region's most distinctive and progressive houses in the 1930s to '50s.

Pries (pronounced Prees) taught at the University of Washington during that time, helping shape the thinking and the skills of many of the Northwest's top architects.

But after 30 years of exemplary service, Pries was forced to resign when University of Washington administrators learned that he was gay.

UW professor and architectural historian Jeffrey Ochsner's book Lionel Pries: Architect, Artist, Educator: From Arts and Crafts to Modern Architecture (UW Press, $60) spells out why and how, at the age of 61, Pries was turned out with no pension. Mortified and in need of money, he had to accept demeaning positions as a draftsman and designer, working for former students and associates.

At the UW, students and faculty were told that Pries left because he was ill and did not want to hear from any of them. Ten years later, when Pries died in 1968, there were no obituaries at the university touting his architectural achievements or spelling out the legacy of his brilliant teaching career. Seattle newspapers published perfunctory notices.

No written record was kept of Pries' forced resignation, says Ochsner, who first became aware of Pries' career when he edited the 1994 book "Shaping Seattle Architecture." After reading the essay by Drew Rocker on Pries' work, Ochsner went to the UW Libraries Special Collections to see what other information was available. What he found piqued his curiosity.

This isn't the place to spell out the repressive political and legal environment of the 1950s that led to Pries' dismissal from the University: Ochsner does all that in the book. But Winskill says that if any good came of the painful ending to Pries' teaching career, it was a degree of freedom in his personal life. After decades of excruciating care to keep his students and colleagues absolutely in the dark about his sexuality, Pries was able to be at least a bit more open about his gay relationships in the final years of his life. And for people who wanted to know why he quit teaching? "He wouldn't lie. He just wouldn't talk about it."

Several things make Pries' design work stand out. Perhaps because of his extensive travels in Mexico, where modern architecture embraced both indigenous art and contemporary murals, Pries was likely the first in Seattle to incorporate Northwest Coast Indian and Asian design motifs into his houses and interiors. He designed to fit the specifics of each site, with tall windows and living spaces wrapped around gardens hidden from the street. Using shoji screens, mosaic work, wood paneling, seared cedar siding, open floor plans and horizontal geometries, Pries houses combine concrete block and industrial materials with handcrafted detailing — models of what we now think of as classic Northwest regional architecture. It's just that we usually associate those attributes with Pries' students instead of him.

One day in 1968, while Pries was in the hospital recovering from a heart attack, he was visited by Keith Kolb, a UW professor emeritus and longtime friend of Pries'. "Well, I'm through with architecture. I'm not going to do it anymore. All I want to do is work in my garden."

The following day, Pries died. In a newspaper notice about Pries' memorial, architect James Chiarelli reportedly spoke for a crowd of a hundred friends and associates when he said: "The minute you stepped into the courtyard of the house he designed, you could feel his genius at work."

Even though Kolb and his wife lived near Pries' Laurelhurst home and continued to visit him often after he stopped teaching, Kolb never found out until after Pries died why he had left the university.

The story came as a shock. Kolb -- along with many other architecture students -- had boarded at Pries' house while in school. Several students each year would rent Pries' spare rooms and, Kolb said, felt honored to do so.

"We had no idea," Kolb said. "None of us knew he was in the closet. One friend who lived there still doesn't believe it to this day."

Full article: Books | Lionel Pries: Rebuilding a legacy | Seattle Times Newspaper