Henry H. Turner (1881-1974) Grand Rapids, Michigan

Henry H. Turner (born 1881, Auburn, New York; died 1974, Cleveland, Ohio) received his architectural education at Harvard, graduated in 1907, and trained with two influential, nationally known school architects of the early twentieth century before commencing his own career as a noted school architect, much of it in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

His first work experience was in the office of William B. Ittner of St. Louis. Ittner was the first Commissioner of that city's public schools in 1897 and, later, Consulting Architect to the St. Louis Board of Education. His designs were widely acclaimed for functionality and artistic excellence; fifty schools of his design were built in St. Louis and twenty-five in other states. A recognized authority on school planning, he lectured on the topic at New York University, was appointed to the National Education Association's Committee on Administration of Secondary Education and was invited by President Hoover to address a national education conference. Ittner also designed school fixtures (including a single-pedestal desk manufactured by American Seating Company of Grand Rapids, which the city's 1910 Board of Education annual report recommended, "for reasons of hygiene and student comfort," for use in three soon-to-be-completed schools).

Turner next trained with Frank Seymour Barnum, an architect well-versed in the design of school buildings and educational planning as the Superintendent of Buildings for the Cleveland Board of Education from 1895 to 1914. Like Ittner's, Barnum's work was well respected nationally. He was widely known for his early advocacy of school fire safety; a disastrous 1908 school fire in the Cleveland suburb of Collinwood resulted in the death of 172 students and teachers, and Barnum's design for the replacement school focused attention on fireproof construction. Barnum's emphasis on fireproof materials and safer exit design in the new school were noted in national publications as well as small town newspapers across the country.

In 1909 the Grand Rapids Board of Education offered Turner employment as designer of high school equipment, an important position because a large new high school was then under construction. (William Ittner, consulting architect on the high-profile Grand Rapids Central High School project, may have recommended Turner.) Grand Rapid's population was then rapidly increasing, new neighborhoods were. being developed, and existing school buildings were viewed as woefully inadequate; the Board soon realized that retaining an architect in its business department would be advantageous for efficient planning for the future; plans could be designed in advance in accordance with areas of identified need, and finalized when resources became available. In 1911 the Board, familiar with Turner's work, offered him the position as architect, and he served in that capacity through 1919. After leaving the employ of the Board of Education, Turner opened his own firm, taking as associates Victor Thebaud, a Cleveland architect, and William Bradfield, an engineer with whom he had worked on Board projects as early as 1915. Although Turner's school designs through the 1920s were with the firm of Turner and Thebaud, Turner is generally credited with the major design responsibility.

During ten years in the direct employ of the Grand Rapids Board of Education - and another ten years frequently under contract to the Board -- Henry H. Turner oversaw the move to school construction with increased emphasis on safety. (In addition to the national focus on fireproof construction after the 1908 Collinwood fire, local concern had heightened after Turner Street School burned to the ground in June of the same year). Also during that time, school design expanded to accommodate broadened curricula as the early twentieth century gave rise to many progressive educational reforms. Among them were early-childhood education, vocational and manual arts training, focus on physical activity and overall student health, and inclusion of handicapped students. Accordingly, Turner designed schools that were among the city's first to include child-friendly kindergarten rooms; modern facilities for sewing, cooking and construction activities; gymnasia, shower facilities and rooms for school nurses; and facilities for physically and mentally disabled students. His designs also accommodated new theory regarding schools as neighborhood focal points for social and learning opportunities, with provision for social centers (the school gymnasium in most cases), public library branches and separate entrances for non-school-hours building use by the public.

Nor was his architectural legacy limited to Grand Rapids schools. As architectural consultant to the Board of Education in Muskegon, Michigan, in the 1920s, he designed several schools for that district as well. His designs also graced Western State Normal School (now Western Michigan University) in Kalamazoo: the Manual Arts Building, a state-of-the-art facility for teaching instructors of manual training, was completed in 1921, and a library completed in 1924 is a component of Old East Campus. Turner also designed a school for the City of East Grand Rapids; built in 1933 in East Paris Township, the school is now known as Breton Downs Elementary. Commercial buildings included the clean-lined, buff-brick Medical Arts Building, a 1925 office building in Grand Rapids. Also in Grand Rapids: the Deco 1933 American Laundry Building with a black marble base, expanses of glass, terra cotta piers, and aluminum spandrels; and the Tourist Building in Fulton Street Park (Veterans Memorial Park), of formal Georgian style in gray cut limestone, a WPA project built in 1935. In the early 1940s, Turner and his family returned to Cleveland, where he worked for the Austin Company, a pioneering design/build firm in the systematized construction of industrial buildings, particularly those requiring large clear spans, such as modern aviation factories and sound stages.