Fact Friday 349 - The Concord Mastermind Behind UNC Charlotte's Original Design

The Boards of Trustees of many educational institutions came to believe that Modernist buildings better served the academic missions of colleges and universities than did structures bedecked with revivalist ornamentation. "Our colleges and universities are charged with a dual assignment – the dissemination of knowledge and the advancement of human thought," said Harold D. Hauf, Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Record in June 1950. Frank G. Lopez, Senior Associate Writer and editor of the Architectural Record, spoke directly to this point. "If the student should be inquisitive, then should not the buildings which surround him, at least during the formal period of education, stimulate inquisitiveness as well as appreciation?" Lopez claimed that the aesthetic form of a modern building was intended to challenge the imagination of students. "Unless a college building expresses in its architecture the advancement of thought and dissemination of knowledge which are the college‘s reasons for existence, that building has in some degree failed to achieve its purpose." Lopez went on to state that only fear of innovation and denial of curiosity would allow College Boards of Trustees to tolerate the recreation of a dead style, heavy in sameness and "architecturally inappropriate." According to Lopez, "However well it [a building] may perform mechanically and physically," it was inappropriate on a college campus if it failed to function philosophically or even spiritually.

Sarah Gibson Blanding (1898-1985), President of Vassar College from 1946 to 1964, was among the group of prescient academic executives who grasped the benefits of Modernist architecture in the years following World War Two. Not to be dismissed is the fact that her tenure coincided with that of Bonnie E. Cone, the President of Charlotte College. Blanding believed that a vital way of visibly expressing Vassar‘s commitment to education was to embrace the most contemporary architectural styles available. Thus, when the need arose for new campus buildings, Blanding reached out to Marcel Breuer, a prominent advocate of Modernism who designed many structures for colleges and universities. It is within this context that one can understand why Cone and the Charlotte College Board of Trustees selected A. G. Odell, Jr., Charlotte‘s major proponent of non-traditional architecture, to fashion the Charlotte College Campus.

Kamphoefner worked tirelessly to recruit distinguished Modernists, because he believed "the faculty was the key to the school." He hired just over thirty new teachers, all of whom were top-ranked leaders in the architectural profession. Among the recruits were George Matsumoto, an associate of noted American architect Eero Saarinen, United Nations headquarters design team member Matthew Nowicki, a Modernist from the United Kingdom, and Eduardo Catalano of Buenos Aires. Kamphoefner revamped the entire curriculum to incorporate Modernist design theory and instituted a distinguished visitors program, which hosted some of the most prominent Modernist architects of the day, such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, Frank Lloyd Wright and Buckminster Fuller. All worked directly with SOD students. Kamphoefner was indefatigable in his efforts to elevate the School of Design from relative obscurity to a level of national prominence.

A. G. Odell, Jr. returned to Charlotte after serving in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) during World War Two and resumed his practice. He wasted no time in leaving his mark on the city and soon established himself as an innovative and well-respected architect. Clients who desired the "latest and best" increasingly went to Odell. During the 1950s, Odell & Associates was one of the largest and most influential architectural firms in North Carolina. In a book marketing his business, Odell described the overall character of the firm. "Our achievements in aesthetics are obtained through the creation of efficient and economical buildings as developed by the teamwork of the talented and skilled professionals of our staff," he wrote. Odell insisted that he and his associates always considered the client‘s needs. ". . . Regardless of how many design awards we may win . . . our primary consideration," he stated, "always must be to create a design within the predetermined budget and to do this so expertly that each project we agree to undertake – whether larger or small – fulfills its operational requirements completely, has artistic merit, and above all, is a sound investment for our client."

Odell became known as a man who thought very highly of his work and of himself. Humility was not one of his principal traits. He wore custom dress suits and drove around Charlotte in his British green racing convertible. Odell was a well-groomed man with a determined spirit and competitive drive. He had little interest in other people‘s feelings, except those of his clients, of course. Odell was somewhat of a sycophant. The son of a prominent textile manufacturer, he socialized frequently with Charlotte‘s civic and business leaders. Odell‘s family had long been involved in the Carolina textile industry. His great-grandfather, John Milton Odell, a cotton manufacturer and founder of the J. M. Odell Company, bought a cotton spinning mill in Bynum, N.C., in 1886. The Bynum mill that J. M. Odell purchased sold much of its yarn to Odell weaving plants, spread across Concord, N.C. "In a society where class connection still counted for much, young Odell had automatic entry to the offices of the area's mill owners and businessmen," writes local historian Thomas Hanchett.
Although not kindhearted, Odell had a genuine charisma that made him, and by extension his designs, alluring to prospective clients.

By 1957, Odell was strident in his support of Modernism. Odell, for example, passionately defended a proposed Modernist chapel on the campus of the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado against critics who thought it was ugly. When Odell learned that the U.S. House of Representatives had voted to withhold funds to construct the Modernist style chapel, Odell virulently chastised the politicians. "Congress should do less meddling in esthetics, about which they apparently know nothing at all," said Odell. "Congress is like the average ignoramus, who says he doesn't know anything about art, but he does know what he likes."

Odell is remembered as a hard taskmaster but one who spoke honestly and with unbending candor, if not always with proper propriety. According to Jack Claiborne, a reporter and later associate editor of the Charlotte Observer, "Odell could pack a sentence full of profanity like no one I‘d ever seen before... and I grew up playing sports, where vulgarity was the very litany of the language." By the time he was selected as the architect for the Charlotte College Campus in 1958, Odell had demonstrably established himself as the most outspoken supporter of Modernism in Charlotte.

Many of Odell‘s early projects were schools and civic buildings. Odell‘s incorporation of geometric and Modernist design elements was evident in these structures: the Second Ward High School Gymnasium (1948), Double Oaks Elementary School (1950), the Charlotte Coliseum and Ovens Auditorium Complex (1955), and the Garinger High School campus buildings and plan (1960). The Charlotte Coliseum project solidified Odell‘s position as a leading modernist architect in North Carolina and the Southeast. At the time of its completion in 1956, the Coliseum‘s 334-foot diameter steel "dome" was one of the largest in the world. This single feature garnered the most attention. Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, and even Look magazine highlighted the structure. The Charlotte Coliseum was the first building by a Charlotte architect to be featured in a foreign architectural publication. The August 1956 issue of Architecturra, an Italian journal, included a two-page article on the construction of the building‘s imposing dome.