Kenneth Johnson, Architect
Born in 1924 in northern Minnesota, architect Kenneth Johnson remembers creating his first “piece of architecture” using a broom handle and shovel in the snow, and – perhaps a more transcendent experience - entering a “cathedral” created by a frozen river with a friend. By 1938 the family moved to Florida where he would help his father build a new family home.
Johnson’s father was a self-taught carpenter and builder and his mother the designer of the houses the family would remodel and successfully sell during the height of the Depression.
After volunteering for vocational training at Orlando High School to help the war effort, Johnson worked in the drafting room at the Babcock Aircraft Company. He enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Georgia Tech to study Aeronautical Engineering. Following active duty, he returned to Georgia Tech to receive his degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1948. While working in the engineering department of the Coca Cola Company, he received his professional engineering license in 1951, and worked for a variety of firms, including Robert and Company, and Toombs, Amisano & Wells, during which time he took night school coursework at Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture. He became a licensed architect in December 1955, and opened his private practice three weeks later as Kenneth Johnson, Architect and Engineer. He was 31 years old.
DOCOMOMO US, Georgia Chapter became aware of Johnson’s work when the condition of the C&S Branch Bank on Moreland Avenue was brought to the Chapter’s attention in 2004 (the building was listed on the Atlanta Preservation Center’s list of endangered sites in May 2011). Later, the chapter would learn more about Johnson's practice during an interview with landscape architect Edward Daugherty, FASLA in 2005.
As the projects documented here indicate, the C&S Branch Bank is only one of many remarkable buildings designed by Johnson during his career. If you have more information regarding any of these sites, please contact the chapter at docomomoga@gmail.com
Born in 1924 in northern Minnesota, architect Kenneth Johnson remembers creating his first “piece of architecture” using a broom handle and shovel in the snow, and – perhaps a more transcendent experience - entering a “cathedral” created by a frozen river with a friend. By 1938 the family moved to Florida where he would help his father build a new family home.
Johnson’s father was a self-taught carpenter and builder and his mother the designer of the houses the family would remodel and successfully sell during the height of the Depression.
After volunteering for vocational training at Orlando High School to help the war effort, Johnson worked in the drafting room at the Babcock Aircraft Company. He enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Georgia Tech to study Aeronautical Engineering. Following active duty, he returned to Georgia Tech to receive his degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1948. While working in the engineering department of the Coca Cola Company, he received his professional engineering license in 1951, and worked for a variety of firms, including Robert and Company, and Toombs, Amisano & Wells, during which time he took night school coursework at Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture. He became a licensed architect in December 1955, and opened his private practice three weeks later as Kenneth Johnson, Architect and Engineer. He was 31 years old.
DOCOMOMO US, Georgia Chapter became aware of Johnson’s work when the condition of the C&S Branch Bank on Moreland Avenue was brought to the Chapter’s attention in 2004 (the building was listed on the Atlanta Preservation Center’s list of endangered sites in May 2011). Later, the chapter would learn more about Johnson's practice during an interview with landscape architect Edward Daugherty, FASLA in 2005.
As the projects documented here indicate, the C&S Branch Bank is only one of many remarkable buildings designed by Johnson during his career. If you have more information regarding any of these sites, please contact the chapter at docomomoga@gmail.com
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Images courtesy Kenneth Johnson, Architect, unless otherwise noted.
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A partial listing of projects executed by Kenneth Johnson between 1949 and 1982.
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