Philip H. Frohman
Philip Hubert Frohman FAIA (November 16, 1887 – October 30, 1972) was an American architect who is most widely known for his work on the Washington National Cathedral, named, the "Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul" in Washington, D.C. He worked on the English Gothic style cathedral from 1921 until his death in 1972.[1]
Philip H. Frohman
November 16, 1887
October 30, 1972 (age 84)
Architect
Gustave Frohman
Marie Hubert
Philip Gengembre Hubert (grandfather)
Charles Frohman (uncle)
Daniel Frohman (uncle)
Education and early career[edit]
Frohman's interest in architecture was evident even in his early years. At the age of eleven, he enrolled in the Throop Polytechnic Institute in Pasadena, California,[6] where he attended grammar school[7] and secondary school.[8] (Throop later spun off its grammar and secondary schools into Polytechnic School, while Throop itself became the California Institute of Technology.) He designed his first house when he was fourteen. In 1907, he graduated and became the youngest person ever to pass the state architectural examination.[9] The following year, at the age of twenty-one, he opened his own office in Pasadena. In his early practice he focused on the design of both churches and houses. Early Frohman-designed churches include Trinity Episcopal Church in Orange, California in 1909, and other parish churches in Santa Barbara and Inglewood, California between 1909 and 1917.[10]
During World War I Frohman served in the ordnance construction section of the Army and was stationed in the Washington, D.C. area. Placed in charge of the architectural division at Aberdeen Proving Ground, he designed buildings there and at Rock Island Arsenal. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of dean of the National Cathedral and, later, the Episcopal bishop of Washington.[11]
Retirement and death[edit]
Although continuing to climb the scaffolding several times a week to inspect the ongoing work,[6] in March, 1971, at the age of 83 Frohman retired. In an unusual move for an architect, he was awarded a retirement stipend by the cathedral.[34]
Although one bishop in the early 1920s informed Frohman that he intended to build the Washington National Cathedral in five years,[35] Frohman himself observed: “Not often does an architect knowingly prepare designs for a building which he is sure he will not see completed in his own lifetime.”[36]
Frohman's prediction proved more accurate than the bishop's. Frohman died on October 30, 1972, following an accident on August 7 in which he was struck by a motorist near the cathedral's grounds.[37] The cathedral nave would not see completion until 1976.[38] Only in September 1990 would the west end he redesigned be dedicated, completing construction of all principal features of the church's interior and exterior structure, although minor embellishment is expected to continue for years.[39]
A Roman Catholic, Frohman's body was interred in the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea on the crypt level of the National Cathedral by special dispensation of the Archdiocese of Washington.[3] He is also memorialized by a bay on the north aisle of the cathedral nave dedicated to him. The inscription on the bay wall reads, in part: “From the deep well of faith sprang devotion to perfection; A graceful witness in this Cathedral Church; To his steadfast spirit and; The prayer his genius sought to record in all his work.”[40]