CONTRIBUTED

The North Carolina State University Libraries in Raleigh has made the drawings and papers of well-known modernist architect Richard B. "Dick" Schnedl available.

Raised in Charlotte, Schnedl was a member of the first graduating class of the N.C. State University School (now College) of Design, where he studied with architect luminaries Jim Fitzgibbon, George Matsumoto, Ed Waugh and Matthew Nowicki.

After graduation, he worked briefly for Leslie Boney Sr. in Wilmington before joining his brother Ed in 1953 to form Schnedl & Schnedl in Reidsville.

An admirer of Frank Lloyd Wright, Schnedl's early residential designs reflect sophisticated open floor plans uncommon for Southern residences at the time, according to a news release from N.C. State University Libraries.

His approach to commercial and institutional facilities resulted in statements of simplicity and elegance as in his design for the Holy Infant Catholic Church in Reidsville featured in Progressive Architecture in the early 1960s.

Around 1968, Schnedl partnered with architects Dick Mitchell, Tommy Hayes and Calvin Howell at Hayes Howell in Southern Pines, where he initiated imaginative designs for multi-purposed spaces in public schools specially conceived to accommodate teaching innovations developed in the federal government's model schools programs.

Also, while at Hayes Howell, he was the partner in charge of design for the award-winning African Pavilion building at the North Carolina Zoo.

In 1984, Schnedl left Hayes Howell and moved to Bald Head Island, where over the remainder of his career he designed more than 40 houses, all intricately respectful and reflective of the sensitive ecosystems into which they were built.

"Dick Schnedl's drawings are a fine addition to the NCSU Libraries' growing archive of works by North Carolina architects, and they especially strengthen our valuable documentation of the Modernist influences on the Southern built-environment," said Susan K. Nutter, vice provost and director of the N.C. State University Libraries. "We are proud to make the work of this noted architect and NC State graduate available to researchers and lovers of architecture around the world."

A guide detailing materials in the collection is available online at http://lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/mc00428. Researchers can access the drawings in the Special Collections Research Center of the D.H. Hill Library on the NC State campus.