Jane West Clauss (September 23, 1907 – January 12, 2003) was an American architect and educator who collaborated on one of the earliest International Style housing developments in the United States.

Biography

Jane Beech West was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1907. Both her father, historian Willis Mason West, and her mother, Elizabeth Sophia (Beech) West, were professors at the University of Minnesota. She attended the University of Minnesota, receiving her B.A. in interior architecture in 1929. She went on to work for about two years in the Paris

atelier An atelier () is the private workshop or studio of a professional artist in the fine or decorative arts or an architect, where a principal master and a number of assistants, students, and apprentices can work together producing fine art or v ...

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

, the first American woman to do so. During her time with Le Corbusier, she worked on the design of his Swiss Dormitory for the City University of Paris. She married the German architect

Alfred Clauss Alfred Clauss (August 23, 1906June 8, 1998) was a German-born architect whose practice was centered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for most of his career. He worked on many buildings in the state, as well as collaborating with his wife, architect J ...

in 1934, and between 1934 and 1945, they lived in Tennessee, where they collaborated on the design of the prewar "Little Switzerland" suburb of split-level houses outside Knoxville, Tennessee. Sponsored by the

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as part of President

Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

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, it is regarded as one of the earliest examples of the International Style in the United States. Laid out along a ridge of Brown's Mountain six miles southeast of downtown Knoxville, Little Switzerland consists of twenty 120 x 240–foot lots, on which 10 houses were designed by Jane and Alfred. In 1945, Clauss and her husband settled in Philadelphia, where she took up a position teaching interior architecture at

Beaver College Arcadia University is a private university in Glenside, Pennsylvania. The university enrolls approximately 4,000 undergraduate, master's, and doctoral students. The campus features Grey Towers Castle, a National Historic Landmark. History B ...

(1946-1967). During this period, she was a participating associate in Clauss & Nolan, a firm founded by her husband. Among the Philadelphia buildings she collaborated on with Alfred are the Federal Courthouse Complex next to Independence Hall and the Riverview Home for the Aged. Clauss became a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1964. On the death of her husband in 1998, Clauss moved to Madison, Wisconsin, where she died in early 2003.

Partial list of buildings

*Little Switzerland development (Tennessee, 1941; with Alfred Clauss) *Riverview Home for the Indigent and Aged — addition (Philadelphia, 1953; with Alfred Clauss) *Federal Courthouse complex — in collaboration with two other firms and Alfred Clauss (Philadelphia)

References

External links

Pioneering Women of American Architecture, Jane West ClaussLittle Switzerland — Knoxville, TennesseeSeymour-Tanner House restorationhttps://www.knoxmercury.com/2016/10/13/south-knoxville-alfred-jane-west-claussprewar-vision-modern-living-restored/.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clauss, Jane West 1907 births 2003 deaths American women architects 20th-century American architects Architects from Minnesota University of Minnesota College of Design alumni Modernist architects from the United States Architecture academics 20th-century American women 21st-century American women