Harrison Albright
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Harrison Albright (May 17, 1866-January 3, 1933) was an American architect best known for his innovative design of the West Baden Springs Hotel which boasted the largest free-spanning dome in the world at the time of its construction.
Born in the Ogontz neighborhood of North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Albright was educated in the local public schools and at the Pierce College of Business and Spring Garden Institute in Philadelphia. In 1886 he began his architecture business designing residential and public projects in Philadelphia. He moved to Charleston, West Virginia in 1891 and was architect for the State of West Virginia in addition to designing residential projects. As State architect he designed an annex to the State Capitol, a state asylum at Huntington, West Virginia, the Miners' Hospital in Fairmont, West Virginia and buildings at Shepherd University and the Preparatory Branch of West Virginia University at Keyser.
In 1901, he was hired by Indiana hotelier Lee Wiley Sinclair to design the landmark West Baden Springs Hotel which included the 200-foot diameter steel and glass dome which would be the largest free-spanning dome in the world until 1913 and the largest in America until the construction of the Houston Astrodome in 1964-5. In 1905, he moved his his architectural practice to California, working in Los Angeles and San Diego. He was an early proponent of reinforced concrete construction. John L. Wright, son of Frank Lloyd Wright was employed in the Albright firm.
He retired from architecture for health reasons in 1925 and died in 1933.
Other notable Albright designs include:
- Spreckels Theater Building, San Diego, California
- Homer Laughlin Building Annex/Lyon Building, Los Angeles, California
- Hotel Richmond, Richmond, Virginia
- Spreckels Organ Pavilion, San Diego, California
- U. S. Grant Hotel (1910), San Diego, California
- Spreckles Mansion, Coronado, California
- Waldo Hotel, Clarksburg, West Virginia
- Power Plant (now Senior Services Center), Columbus, Indiana
- Brockman Building, Los Angeles
- Court House, Upshur County, West Virginia
- Santa Fe Freight Depot (1907), Los Angeles, California (now home to the Southern California Institute of Architecture)
- Coronado Library (1909), Coronado, California
- Adams School, Maricopa, Arizona
- Eli P. Clark Hotel (1912), Los Angeles
