User:Jduval01/sandbox/Margaret Burnham Geddes

Margaret Burnham Geddes (née Kelly; September 26, 1907 – February 18, 1961) was an American architect, urban planner, and activist who worked in Providence, Rhode Island. She designed several early modernist houses in southern New England with partner J. Peter Geddes and worked as a planner for the Providence Redevelopment Agency and as an independent planning consultant.

Early life and education
Margaret Burnham Kelly was born on September 26, 1907 in Evanston, Illinois. She was one of five children of George T. Kelly, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, and Margaret Burnham Sherman, daughter of the architect Daniel Hudson Burnham. In December 1921 the widowed Margaret Sherman married Benjamin Fairchild Stower of Sturbridge, Massachusetts. In 1922 the family relocated to Brown Street on the East Side of Providence, Rhode Island. Margaret Burnham Kelly graduated from the Wheeler School in June 1925.

Margaret Burnham Kelly entered Vassar College in the fall of 1925 and studied art and mathematics. Kelly was a member of the track team and a news editor for The Vassar Miscellany News. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated from Vassar with an AB in the spring of 1929.

The following fall Kelly enrolled as architecture student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts where she studied under William Emerson, William H. Lawrence, Paul W. Norton, and Frederick Adams. Her senior thesis project for “A Beach Development” on Ocean Road in Narragansett, Rhode Island though never built, is a prelude to her later designs in its combination of land use planning and development, effective response to the site, and careful consideration of circulation. Kelly described the project as "modern, very simple and direct, and horizontal in its treatment."

With Peter Geddes
After graduating from MIT Kelly returned to her family home in Providence and worked independently for several years. In 1934 she formed an architectural partnership with Peter Geddes, who had received his degree in architecture from Columbia University in 1926. The firm Geddes & Kelly worked predominately on residential projects and was active between 1934 and 1948, maintaining an office on the second floor of the Hospital Trust Building on  Westminster Street in  Providence.

Geddes & Kelly disbanded briefly between 1942 and 1944 due to World War II, during which time Kelly worked as a Project Planner for the Federal Public Housing Authority in Washington, DC and as a truck driver employed by the U.S. Army and Geddes served as an Army engineer in the Pacific. Kelly and Geddes married on December 3, 1942, at which time Kelly changed her last name to Geddes.

Around 1940, several houses designed by Geddes & Kelly were featured in American architectural periodicals. The first Geddes & Kelly house to be published was a small, single story, three-bedroom house in Seekonk, Massachusetts. The article in Architectural Forum noted “clean lines and restful surfaces indoors, with an austere avoidance of decoration… Even the trim around door and window openings has been banished, its place taken by the simplest quarter-round of stainless steel, flush with the plaster.” The George R. Rowland House (1938) in Brookfield, Massachusetts made use of a simplified, stripped down version of traditional New England domestic architecture, relying on unadorned brick and bands of casement windows without panes.

Geddes & Kelly designed their own residence at 29 Manning Street, Providence, Rhode Island, as a two story, two-bedroom house built in brick with a set back hip roof and casement windows. The design of the house was praised for the sensible arrangement of service areas on the street side and main living areas in the rear. Geddes and Kelly lived in this house until their deaths in 1990 and 1995, respectively. The building was promised to Brown University by Peter and Margaret in 1966 and it became Brown’s at the time of her death in 1995. Brown’s Urban Studies Program was housed in the building until 2015 when the University chose to demolish one of Providence’s earliest examples of modernist architecture to make way for a new Engineering Research Center designed by KieranTimberlake, completed in October 2017. Twenty five years earlier, the architectural importance of the house and the possibility of demolition were already noted by William Jordy, professor of architectural history: “Looking to the future, should all houses along the Manning Street Corridor…be eliminated in future additions for the sciences? Or might it be possible to save the brick Geddes House…? For the architectural historian it has the additional interest of being an early example of domestic “modernism” in Providence.” Geddes & Kelly also designed the much larger 47 Manning Street at the same time as their own home. Three of the firm's houses were included in the 1941 “Exhibition of Contemporary Rhode Island Art” at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.

Peter Geddes formed the partnership Harkness & Geddes with Albert Harkness in 1948. Margaret Geddes worked part-time at the new firm while she continued to work independently on architectural projects. In 1950 she designed the Scott House on Simpson Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island as an extension of a nineteenth-century garage. Kelly’s designs were included in a 1950 architecture exhibition sponsored by the Rhode Island chapter of the American Institute of Architects at the Providence Art Club where she was also a lifetime member.

Planing and preservation work
Kelly left her position at Harkness & Geddes in 1956 when she was hired as Planner II for the Providence Redevelopment Agency. Earlier in the 1950s Kelly had worked as an activist and organizer in the planning community, leading the community planning committee of the League of Women Voters of Providence and serving on the boards of the Providence Redevelopment Agency in 1954 and the Citizens Committee for Redevelopment in 1955.

Once hired, Kelly’s principal responsibility at the Providence Redevelopment Agency was project planning for the Constitution Hill rehabilitation area, located on the East Side of the city, along North Main Street and the Moshassuck River. She was also instrumental in early efforts to establish an historic zoning area in Providence’s College Hill neighborhood, in collaboration with members of the Providence Preservation Society. She continued to educate members of the Rhode Island League of Women Voters on issues of redevelopment and remained openly supportive of fair housing laws in Rhode Island.

Later career
Kelly left the Providence Redevelopment agency in 1961 but continued to work on planning and advocacy projects. She considered herself a “City Planning Consultant” and worked for various firms such as Blain & Stein and for the Cape Cod sector of the Massachusetts State Plan. She remained active in planning and policy in the 1960s and 70s. In 1964 she served on a panel on urban redevelopment policy at Vassar College in 1964 and in 1974 advocated for responsible land use on behalf of the Audubon Society of Rhode Island.

Kelly was a member of the American Institute of Planners and the Rhode Island chapter of the American Institute of Architects from 1940 until her death. She held various leadership positions in the RI AIA including Chair of the Public Information Committee from 1949 to 1952, Secretary from 1952 to 1954, and Chair of the Civic Improvement Committee in 1954, the same year in which Kelly represented the chapter at the 86th annual AIA convention.

Kelly was involved with the League of Women Voters from 1952 to 1969, serving as the director of the Providence chapter from 1954 to 1956. . She was a member of the Vassar Alumnae Council and the Rhode Island Vassar Alumnae Association, serving variously as its President and as the Chair of the Class of 1929 Fund.

Architectural works

 * American Brass Company Building, Providence, Rhode Island - 1936
 * George R. Rowland House, Brookfield, Massachusetts - 1938
 * Narragansett Boat Club, Providence, Rhode Island - 1939
 * Geddes House, 29 Manning Street, Providence, Rhode Island - 1939, demolished 2015
 * 47 Manning Street, Providence, Rhode Island - 1939
 * A.B. Wells House, Walker Pond, Southbridge, Massachusetts - 1940
 * N.D. Hartzell House (alterations and addition), Nayatt, Barrington, Rhode Island - about 1940
 * W.C. Harris House, Barrington, Rhode Island - 1941
 * Bachelor’s House, Seekonk, Massachusetts - 1941
 * Guest House, Sturbridge, Massachusetts - 1941
 * Stimson Avenue House, Providence, Rhode Island - 1950
 * G.D. Morgan House, Gaithersburg, Maryland - 1952