Arthur Gould (A.
G.) Odell Jr.FAIA
(1913–1988)
Odell grew up in Concord NC. He attended Duke University starting in 1930 then transferred to Cornell University, graduating in 1935. After additional training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, he did a grand tour of Europe and returned to New York City to work with Wallace K. Harrison, who would later head the team that designe the United Nations building. He also worked with industrial designer Raymond Loewy, the man who gave the Studebaker its classic aerodynamic lines. Odell came to Charlotte in 1939 and set up a one-man office. During WWII he served in the US Army Corps of Engineers. After the war, he built one of the largest and most influential architectural businesses in North Carolina, Odell Associates, which in 2021 merged with Labella.
According to Charlotte historian Dan Morrill, Odell had nothing but disdain for the architecture he observed when he arrived in Charlotte in the late 1930s. "There was nothing here," said Odell, "that illustrated the honesty of stone as stone, steel as steel, glass as glass. Everybody was still wallowing in the Colonial heritage." It was the Charlotte Coliseum that gave Odell international fame. At the time, it was the largest unsupported dome in the world.
Odell became Charlotte's champion of the International style and devoted his considerable talents and energies to reshaping the city. Odell's residential work was generally under the radar, done only for close friends and large corporate clients. Odell was President of AIANC from 1943-1954 and became the first national AIA President from North Carolina in 1965. In 1973, a number of the Odell staff left to form Clark Harris Tribble and Li. Facing health problems and a second palace revolt, he sold most of his stock in 1979 to a younger management team.
By the 1980s, Odell alumni had spawned some 40 practices. He retired in 1982 but continued to come into the office, even when that required a nurse. He lived at 2149 Sherwood Avenue, Charlotte. Odell did not design the traditional 1925 house but extensively remodeled it over his career.
Odell's Sherwood Avenue renovation attracted media attention such as the above cover of Better Homes & Gardens, October 1955.
One of Odell's most well-known buildings is the Blue Cross Blue Shield building in Chapel Hill, above. Technically a rhombus, the shape of the building has been most frequently referred to as a trapezoid, which is also true, as a rhombus is also a trapezoid! According to Michael Warner, hired by Odell in 1966, Odell thought BCBS was the firm's best work. The project architect was Charles McMurray.
Odell designed much of the original Research Triangle Institute campus in Research Triangle Park, including the circular chapel-like Dreyfus auditorium, left, since destroyed. Odell designed the Wachovia Building in Downtown Raleigh, right.
Odell (left) with employee Al Cameron, left. Odell receiving an award from Lady Bird Johnson in 1968, right.
* Progressive Architecture feature on Odell (May 1957)
* 1960s Odell brochure provided by Walter Bost, who started with the firm in 1950.
* News 14 Carolinas coverage of Lassiter House, four months away from demolition. NCModernist's national endangerment alert helped bring this house a new owner in May 2011.
The award-winning 1959 Holy Comforter Lutheran Church in Belmont NC. The project architect was Charles Bates. The acoustics are quite extraordinary.
"Architecture is 10% art and 90% business." —A. G. Odell
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Sources include: The Arthur Gould Odell papers at the UNC Charlotte's J. Murrey Atkins Library; Charlotte Historic Landmarks Commission; Dan Morrill; Post World War Two Charlotte Survey by Sherry Joines Wyatt and Sarah Woodard; Thomas Haskell Wright; daughter Alexandra Odell; former employee Walter Bost; Henry Faison Jr.