Edward Larrabee Barnes

Who was Edward Larrabee Barnes?

Edward Larrabee Barnes was an American architect.

Barnes was born in Chicago, Illinois into a family he described as "incense-swinging High Episcopalians", consisting of Cecil Barnes, a lawyer, and Margaret Helen Ayer, recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for the novel Year of Grace. He graduated from Harvard in 1938 after studying English and Art History before switching to architecture, then taught at Milton Academy, before returning to Harvard for further studies under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. He graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1942 and served in the Navy during World War II. After the war he worked for Henry Dreyfuss in Los Angeles designing prototypes for mass-produced homes.

In 1949 Barnes founded Edward Larrabee Barnes Associates in Manhattan. During his long career, Barnes - with his wife Mary Barnes as interior designer - designed office buildings, museums, botanical gardens, private houses, churches, schools, camps, colleges, campus planning, and housing. Many of his buildings are widely recognized, including the Dallas Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, and the IBM Building at 590 Madison Avenue in Manhattan.