The American School Archive, part of the University of Oklahoma (OU) Libraries’ Western History Collection, recently acquired the Donald MacDonald Collection, including thousands of items representing the life’s work of prominent San Francisco-based architect Donald MacDonald, FAIA (b. 1935).
MacDonald (b.1935), who was born in Canada, chose to study architecture at the University of Oklahoma after seeing a photograph of Bruce Goff’s work. He studied with Herb Greene at Oklahoma and later earned a master’s degree from Columbia University. He has said that the level of freedom he was given in Herb Greene’s design studios at OU fundamentally shaped his vision of the creative process as central to an architect’s practice.
It was MacDonald who gave the name “The American School” to the pedagogy and practice that emerged at the University of Oklahoma in the mid-century under Goff and Greene. After finishing his master’s degree, MacDonald opened his own private practice in San Francisco…
Story courtesy University of Oklahoma College of Architecture; Image courtesy of Dllu
