Andrews, George F., 1918-2000

George F. Andrews was born September 25, 1918 in Minneapolis, Minn. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Architecture from the University of Michigan in 1941 and spent the next four years in the office of Smith, Hinchman and Grylls, Architects & Engineers in Detroit. He met his future wife Geraldine (Gerrie) during this period. They married in 1945 and made a move to Chicago where Andrews began work with Perkins and Will, Architects.

In 1948, George accepted an appointment as assistant professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Oregon in Eugene and also began private architectural practice in the city under his own name. He became an associate professor in 1953 and later that decade began over forty years of intensive field study and meticulous recording of lowland Maya architecture sites in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico and the neighboring countries of Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. From 1958 to 1997, both George and Gerrie Andrews spent periods ranging from one to nine months at Maya field sites, conducting architectural surveys of excavated buildings that involved detailed measurements, scale photography, descriptive reports, and architectural sketches and drawings, including restored views of decayed buildings. The Andrews' began their fieldwork at Comalcalco, Tabasco, Mexico, with support from the Ford Foundation. They concentrated their efforts in the Puuc, Chenes-Puuc, Chenes, and Río Bec regions of the central Yucatán Peninsula because of the greater availability of exposed and relatively well-preserved sites in that particular area. Andrews retired from teaching in 1980 to devote his time to Maya research. His work culminated in the documentation of approximately 800 buildings at 224 separate archaeological sites, resulting in perhaps the most wide-ranging and detailed survey ever conducted of lowland Maya architecture.

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