Floyd Naramore

Who was Floyd Naramore?

Floyd A. Naramore was a Seattle architect. He was Seattle Schools Architect from 1919 to 1932, and he was a founding partner, in 1943, of the firm that today is known as NBBJ.

Naramore studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He subsequently took a job as a drafter with the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company from 1900 to 1903, then worked with architect George Fuller on a C&NWRR office building for two years. He returned to school and earned an architectural degree at MIT in 1907. After a brief stint in Chicago, Naramore moved to Portland, Oregon, where he worked for Northwest Bridgeworks from 1909 to 1912 as a cost estimator.

Naramore's involvement with schools began thereafter and lasted until the 1930s. He was appointed Architect and Superintendent of properties for the Portland School District, then was hired by the Seattle School District in 1919 as the district's architect. Naramore became a prolific designer of schools contemporaneously with a new state compulsory attendance law and a decision to add junior high schools to the system which created tremendous demand for new buildings. He was responsible for the design of roughly twenty schools between 1919 and 1930. He also undertook school projects outside Seattle and consulted on school projects in other districts.