Lathrop Douglass (1907-1981) was one of the founding fathers of the American shopping mall. His first mall-type complex opened in 1954. By 1976, he had designed over 100 shopping malls and centers, thirty department stores and fifty office buildings.
Photo from The Annual Obituary 1981 / St. Martin's Press

Lathrop Douglass, Senior was born, in Kansas City, Missouri, on September 5, 1907.  He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Connecticut's Yale University in 1929 and attended classes at Ecole des Beaux Arts, in Fontainebleau, France. In 1932, he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Yale.

EARLY ENDEAVORS

Douglass was employed as an architect at the Housing Board of the State of New York (1938-1941). He was a consulting engineer at the War Department (1943-1944), was employed as Assistant Chief Engineer at the Johnson, Drake & Piper firm (1941-1943) and was Chief Architect at the John W. Harris Associates firm (1943-1946). Douglass founded his own business, Lathrop Douglass Architects, in 1946.

An early Douglass design concept was for the Skytel, an air field terminal building, hotel and restaurant complex.
Drawing from Lathrop Douglass Architects

One of Douglass' first commissions was for the design of the A.G. Spalding & Brothers plant, in Willimansett, Massachusetts. In 1948, he drafted plans for the Esso Standard Oil Building, in Baton Rouge. Commissions for several Esso office buildings followed. Douglass was made a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) in March 1960.

DOUGLASS-DESIGN

Plans for the first of many shopping centers were drawn, in 1950, for the NORTH SHORE SHOPPING MART, in Nassua County, New York. The first Douglass-designed mall, Yonkers, New York's CROSS COUNTY CENTER, opened in April 1954. Subsequent mall projects included PRINCE GEORGES PLAZA, Hyattsville, Maryland (1959), CONNECTICUT POST CENTER, Milford, Connecticut (1960) and TYSONS CORNER CENTER, Fairfax County, Virginia (1968). 

Like fellow architect Victor Gruen, Lathrop Douglass was a proponent of urban renewal. This concept advocated that the declining downtowns of American and Canadian cities could be revitalized with open-air or fully-enclosed shopping centers. Several Douglass-designed downtown redevelopment projects followed, with the more noteworthy being CHAPEL SQUARE, New Haven, Connecticut (1967) and LAFAYETTE PLAZA, Bridgeport, Connecticut (1968).

EMINENT EPILOGUE

In the end, the center city mall concept failed to curtail the decline of the Central Business District in North America. Douglass designed downtown malls for cities such as Trenton, New Jersey, New Bedford, Massachusetts and Niagara Falls, New York. These were never built. Following a celebrated, decade-spanning career in architecture and urban planning, Lathrop Douglass, Senior passed away on January 21, 1981.