Warren P. Laird

After graduating from Winona Normal School, Warren P. Laird took architecture at Cornell University. He then worked for six years in architectural firms in Minnesota, Boston, and New York City. Toward the end of his studies, he was an instructor of architecture at Cornell for one year followed by a year-long study visit to Paris.

In 1891, Laird was appointed professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1911, he was awarded an honorary doctorate there, and in 1920 he was appointed dean of the School of Fine Arts. In 1932 he retired and became professor emeritus, but still lectured at Princeton.

Laird was a frequent consultant to state and local government agencies in the United States and Canada. He served on the national advisory board of Lingnan University in Canton, China, and was a trustee there for seventeen years.

Laird was president of the Fine Arts League of Philadelphia and served on the education committee of the American Institute of Architects. He was also president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and a member of the Commission on Church Architecture of the General Council of the Lutheran Church of North America.

His main projects included the Free Public Library (1899) and the Masonic Temple (1909), both in Winona, Minnesota, the Stock Pavilion (1908), Lathrop Hall (1910), and the Agricultural Chemistry Building (1912), all in Madison, Wisconsin, later the Delaware River Bridge and Girard College Chapel in Philadelphia, and numerous court houses.