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Biographical Summary
Richard Marsh Bennett was born in 1907 in Braddock, Pennsylvania.
He studied architecture at Harvard University, where he received
his bachelor's degree in 1928 and master's degree in 1931. He
worked in New York in the office of Walter Dorwin Teague (1936)
and later for Edward Durell Stone (1936-1938), before co-founding
his own architectural office with Caleb Hornbostel (1938-1943).
In 1947 Bennett was invited to Chicago by Jerrold Loebl and Norman
Schlossman to join their firm, renamed Loebl, Schlossman and Bennett.
While at that office, he designed the new community of Park Forest,
Illinois. Bennett also designed numerous suburban Chicago shopping
centers, including Hawthorne, Oakbrook, and Old Orchard. Bennett's
work has been known as "basically humanistic" because
his forms took into consideration new technology and materials
as well as social concerns. He retired from Loebl, Schlossman
and Bennett in 1975 but continued to teach, as he had done throughout
his career as a practicing architect. He taught at various institutions,
including Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute (1934-1936), Columbia
University (1937-1940), Vassar College (1937-1943), Yale University
(1940-1947), Illinois Institute of Technology (1975), and Harvard
University's Graduate School of Design (1975-1984). Bennett was
elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of
Architects in 1953. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1996.
Interview Highlights
Bennett speaks about why he became an architect; study at Harvard
University; travel in Europe; Caleb Hornbostel; the Wheaton College
Art Center competition; the Century of Progress International
Exhibition in Chicago, 1933-1934; teaching at Yale University;
coming to Chicago to design the new community of Park Forest;
working with Elbert Peets; studying the needs of people; the how
and why of architecture; the health of cities.
1350-1360 North Lake Shore Drive; Chicago, 1949-1951. Photograph
by Jean Jenger.
Oakbrook Center; Oak Brook, Illinois, 1959-1961. Photograph courtesy
of Sears, Roebuck & Co.
Interview Excerpt
"Here's the other thing that I think is important to remember:
the clients you have are people first. You never know why they
are hooked on certain ideas. I like to say an architect is like
a doctor, he prescribes buildings. The truth of the matter is
that when we do a building we prescribe an environment that does
things to and for people. I am convinced that we don't study people
enough. For example, our shopping centers are a little different
from others. It's based on the theory of how a lady goes shopping...she'll
come home and she will tell her husband she's so tired, she shopped
all day. What she's saying is, 'I'm as tired as you are. You were
making the money and I was spending it, but I was spending it
wisely because I found a bargain.' What this means is that she
will come back and complain about how many places she went to.
If you listen to ladies, they're always talking about this business
of finding things and the work it is to shop. If you don't furnish
that kind of an environment, you're not fulfilling their psychological
needs." (p. 48)
Other Resources at The Art Institute of Chicago
Also see the oral history of Bennett's partner, Norman
Schlossman.
Funding for this oral history was provided by Loebl, Schlossman
& Hackl.
Funding for the electronic presentation of this transcript was
provided by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council.
About the Chicago Architects Oral History Project
Department of Architecture • Ryerson & Burnham Archives
Send questions or comments to:
Ryerson & Burnham Archives, Chicago Architects Oral History Project
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