Cret, Paul Philippe

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Cret, Paul Philippe (1876–1945). French-born American architect. He trained at the Écoles des Beaux-Arts in Lyons and Paris, before emigrating to the United States in 1903 where he taught at the University of Pennsylvania and set up his own practice in 1907. Under his aegis Penn's School of Architecture achieved an outstanding reputation, and produced many graduates of distinction, including Louis I. Kahn. Cret's monumental Pan-American Union Building, Washington, DC (1907–10), reveals his Beaux-Arts training. The Public Library, Indianapolis, IN (1914–17), has massive blocky pavilions on either side of a severe Doric colonnade, but with the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC (1928–32), Cret's style became more stripped and powerful. His most moving works in a simplified Classical idiom are his memorials to the dead of the 1914–18 war: a good example is the Aisne-Marne Memorial, near Château-Thierry, France (1926–33).

Bibliography

Grossman (1996);
Hoak & and Church (1930);
T. White (1973)

A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture

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Cret, Paul Philippe

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