O’Neil Ford papers donated to UT Austin Architectural Drawings Collection

Office files and personal papers of the noted Texas architect, O’Neil Ford (1905-1982), have been donated to the Architectural Drawings Collection at The University of Texas at Austin by his widow, Wanda Graham Ford. The collection of materials includes not only personal and business papers, but also books, pamphlets, and photographic materials from the architect’s collection.

O’Neil Ford emphasized the integration of crafts and the use of native materials in his designs. His larger, most notable projects include the restoration of the La Villita and designs for the new campus for Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and Skidmore College in New York. Ford’s work was nationally published. Among his honors were an appointment to the National Council on the Arts in 1968 and to the American Council for the Arts in Education in 1975. The first endowed chair in the School of Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin was named for O’Neil Ford.

It will take several years to fully process and catalog this extensive collection of materials. Access to the O’Neil Ford materials within the Architectural Drawings Collection, a unit of the General Libraries of The University of Texas at Austin, is by appointment only.