Patton, George S. Jr.

George Patton, a landscape architect known for his collaborations with important twentieth-century Philadelphia architects and for his independent designs, was born in Franklin, NC, in the rural western portion of the state. He began his training at North Carolina State University in Raleigh in the early 1940s. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1943 before completing his degree, serving as an artist, cartographer, and model maker. After the close of the war, he worked in Hollywood as a film set decorator and designer before returning to North Carolina to complete his B.A. in Landscape Architecture (1948). He won a two-year fellowship at the American Academy in Rome and a Fulbright fellowship that ran concurrently with the second year of this prize. While in Rome, he came to know Louis I. Kahn during Kahn's pivotal three-month stay in 1951 as Resident Architect at the Academy. Patton and Kahn traveled together to Egypt and Greece. After his return from Rome, Patton entered the office of Pittsburgh landscape architects Simonds & Simonds in 1951 and remained there until 1954, when he established his own practice in Philadelphia. Patton worked with Kahn on signal projects such as the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, TX, the Olivetti Factory in Harrisburg, PA and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in New York City. Other prominent architect collaborators included: Venturi & Rauch; Mitchell/Giurgola; Carroll, Grisdale & van Alen; and Bower, Lewis, Thrower.

Patton was a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects; he served as its third Vice-President in 1965-1967, and then its first Vice-President in 1967-1969. He also chaired the publication board of Landscape Architecture between 1975 and 1980. Patton was a member of the Philadelphia Art Commission (1960-1968), an advisor to the Eastern Regional Office of Housing and Urban Development (1968-1969), and a member of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta. He taught landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Fine Arts from 1955 until 1974.

From the description of George E. Patton architectural records, 1939-1990. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 63585916