George Matsumoto

Who is George Matsumoto?

George Matsumoto is an American architect and educator who is known for his Modernist designs.

George Matsumoto was born in 1922 in San Francisco, California. He attended the University of California at Berkeley in architecture, but due to his internment during World War II as were other Japanese-Americans, Matsumoto completed his undergraduate education at Washington University in Saint Louis. He earned his graduate degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, studying under Eliel Saarinen.

Completing his graduate studies in 1945, Matsumoto joined the firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill in Chicago and in 1946, joined the firm of Saarinen and Swanson. While with Saarinen and Swanson, he, along with Terry Waugh and David Greer, won the "Better Chicago Contest" with a cash prize of $10,000. Their winning entry was a comprehensive regional plan for greater Chicago.

Following a year of private practice in Kansas City, Missouri, Matsumoto joined the department of architecture at the University of Oklahoma as an instructor. A year later, he moved with the head of the school of architecture, Henry L. Kamphoefner, to the new School of Design at North Carolina State University.