On the evening of May 16, 1958, architecture alumni of the University of Washington converged on Seattle from all over the country. The event was a banquet to celebrate the founding of their alma mater's new College of Architecture and Urban Planning. One by one, the dean introduced the college's faculty members. At the name of Lionel "Spike" Pries, one alumnus recalled, "there was a special charge in the air. . . . Everyone rose and cheered and clapped; it appeared to go on forever." But within six months, Lionel Pries was abruptly and mysteriously gone from the university. After thirty years of service, he lost his job, his major source of income, and, just four years short of retirement, his pension. The official explanation was illness; friends "sensed a large injustice," in what they believed was a dismissal based on Pries's sexual orientation.
With Lionel H. Pries, Architect, Artist, Educator: From Arts and Crafts to Modern Architecture, Jeffrey Karl Ochsner redresses that injustice. Pries (1897-1968) was one of the most influential teachers of architecture and design at the University of Washington. Minoru Yamasaki, A. Q. Jones, Fred Bassetti, Wendell Lovett, Victor Steinbrueck, and many other prominent twentieth-century architects were trained by Pries, whose highly artistic style of design helped shape the development of American Modernism in architecture.
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