Armstrong, Harris, 1899-1973

Harris Armstrong was a well-read and largely self-taught modern architect revered for his masterful application of strikingly colorful, innovative, and spacious structures for every use conceivable. Especially popular in America's Middle West from the 1930s to 1960s, Armstrong's favored designs quietly echoed the Scandinavian and Asian tendency to observe economic resourcefulness of material and elegant simplicity of form, coupled with his self-defined brash interpretation of Frank Lloyd Wright's work. In St. Louis, some of Armstrong's residential clients included Doctors Carl and Gerty Cori (Nobel Peace Prize recipients) and Dr. Henry Hampton. His notable commercial projects and clients in St. Louis included Washington University, McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, American Stove Company, Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney, the St. Louis Ethical Society, the Kirkwood Community Center, the Lutheran Church of the Atonement, and various YWCA branches. Additionally, Armstrong was the only solo-finalist in the design competition for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis.