William Henry Kessler (December 15, 1924 – November 16, 2002) was an American

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

Architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Biography

Early life and education

William Kessler was born in 1924 in

Reading, Pennsylvania Reading ( ; ) is a city in Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. The city had a population of 95,112 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census and is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, fourth-most populous ...

. His father, Fred H. Kessler, established the Lumberman's Merchandising Corporation (LMC) as a cooperative lumber company consortium in the mid-1930s. William Kessler attended the

Chicago Institute of Design The Institute of Design (ID) is a graduate school of the Illinois Institute of Technology, a private university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The Institute of Design was founded in 1937 as "The New Bauhaus" by László Moholy-Nagy, a Ba ...

, graduating with a BA in architecture in 1948. He continued his studies with

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Career, family and later life

After graduation, he was recruited by

Minoru Yamasaki was an American architect, best known for designing the original World Trade Center in New York City and several other large-scale projects. Yamasaki was one of the most prominent architects of the 20th century. He and fellow architect Edward ...

. and came to Michigan to work at Yamasaki's firm. After working there for some time, Kessler and fellow architect Phil Meathe departed to form their own firm, Meathe, Kessler and Associates. In 1959, Kessler designed the William and Margot Kessler House for himself, his wife Margot, and his family; he constructed it for a total cost of $30,000. Meathe, Kessler and Associates was dissolved in 1968, and Kessler established his own eponymous firm, while Meathe joined Smith, Hinchman and Grylls, eventually becoming president of the firm. Kessler's firm worked on a variety of single family houses, public housing, college and university buildings, and hospitals. William Kessler died in 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kessler, William 1924 births 2002 deaths Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni Illinois Institute of Technology alumni Modernist architects from the United States