Donald Barthelme

Who was Donald Barthelme?

Donald Barthelme, Sr. was an architect in Houston, Texas, a teacher of architecture as a professor at the University of Houston and Rice University, and the father of novelist Donald Barthelme, Jr..

Barthelme was born on August 4, 1907 in Galveston, Texas. After studying at the Rice Institute in Houston for two years, in 1926 he transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1930. That same year he married Helen Bechtold of Philadelphia. After graduation he worked as an architect in Philadelphia until late in 1932, when he returned to Texas.

A highlight of Barthelme's early career in Texas was his work on the Texas Centennial Exposition, for which he was the lead designer of the exposition's centerpiece building, the Hall of State, which is considered a masterpiece of the Art Deco style and is now the home of the Dallas Historical Society. After the outbreak of World War II he worked on war-related projects. He was a designer on the Avion Village Housing Project near Dallas and later was supervising architect for the Big Spring Air Base in West Texas and war-related housing projects in Galveston and Sweeny, Texas.