Howard Van Doren Shaw, FAIA

Year Awarded: 1927
Born: May 07, 1869; Chicago, Illinois
Died: 1905


Projects
• 1929: R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company plant, Chicago
• 1926: Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago: cloister and courtyard
• 1924: McKinlock Court of the Art Institute of Chicago
• 1916: Thorndale Manor
• 1916: Market Square, Lake Forest, Ill. , the first outdoor shopping mall in America
• 1910: North Lake Shore Apartments, Chicago
• 1906: Mentor Building, South State Street, Chicago
• 1898: Ragdale House, Lake Forest, Ill., the Shaw family home


Biography
Howard Van Doren Shaw was a native of Chicago, born to Theodore Shaw, a successful dry goods wholesaler, and Sarah Van Doren, an artist. He attended private schools before going to Yale; he graduated from Yale in 1890 and then moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study architecture. He returned to Chicago to work in the offices of William LeBaron Jenney and William B. Mundie.

In 1892 Shaw traveled through Europe to study architecture independently, gaining a unique style that merged the Beaux-Arts and the Arts and Crafts movements. He returned to Jenney’s office after six months and worked for him on a contractual basis before setting up his own practice.

Shaw worked on more than 200 projects during his long career, including residential, industrial, commercial, and religious commissions. He built a wide range of buildings, from country houses, townhouses, and apartment buildings, to civic spaces, skyscrapers, and industrial plant complexes, as well as schools and churches.

In 1907 the AIA made Shaw a Fellow. He was trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago, the United Charities, and Illinois College, Jacksonville, Ill. He was also chairman of the State Art Commission.