Paul Philippe Cret

Paul Philippe Cret (1876 to 1945) was an architect born in Lyons, France, who attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in both Lyon and Paris and was recruited at age twenty-seven to teach architectural design at the University of Pennsylvania. He served as professor of design there from 1903 until 1937, apart from a leave during the First World War, and influenced a number of young men who became well-known architects, among them Robert McGoodwin, Sydney Martin, John Harbeson, Alfred Bendiner and Louis Kahn. He was consulting architect to the American Battle Monuments Commission from 1923 until his death. His designs include the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, the Delaware River Bridge now called the Ben Franklin Bridge, the Pan American Union building and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., and campuses for Brown University and the University of Texas at Austin.