Cret, Paul Philippe

Cret, Paul Philippe

(1876–1945) architect and educator; born in Lyons, France. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris and emigrated to Philadelphia in 1903. Particularly prolific during the 1920s, he designed civic and memorial buildings in a modern classical style adapted to steel-frame construction; his work includes the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C. (1928–32). Cret was professor of design at the University of Pennsylvania (1903–37). He received the American Institute of Architects' Gold Medal (1938).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.