Charles Murphy (architect)

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Charles Murphy (architect) bigraphy, stories - American architect

Charles Murphy (architect) : biography

February 9, 1890 – May 24, 1985

Charles Francis Murphy (1890 – 1985) was an American architect based in Chicago, Illinois.

Selected buildings

  • Richard J. Daley Center (1965)
  • McCormick Place, Chicago (1970) convention centre rebuilt following a fire in 1967
  • O’Hare Airport
  • J. Edgar Hoover Building (FBI HQ)

Biography

Born in Jersey City, New Jersey, Murphy was educated at the De La Salle Institute in Chicago.

Murphy’s first job was as a secretary, joining the offices of D.H. Burnham & Company in 1911, where he was steadily promoted to become personal secretary to the architect Ernest Graham. When Graham died in 1937, Murphy moved on to co-found the architectural practice Shaw, Naess & Murphy, despite that fact that he still had no formal training as an architect. The practice was later renamed C.F. Murphy Associates and then Murphy/Jahn Inc. in 1983 as Helmut Jahn took over as president.

Murphy was awarded an honorary degree from St. Xavier University in 1961, and became a fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1964.