"This book describes the arrival of modernism, regionalism, and postwar twentieth-century technology in an unlikely messenger from Pink Hill, Texas. O'Neil Ford was an American original, and this book does eloquent justice to that originality."

—Bill Lacy, FAIA, author of 100 Contemporary Architects: Drawings and Sketches

"David Dillon has stirred the embers of the fire of personality, conscience, and, yes, genius, that was O'Neil Ford, the ranking Texas architect of the twentieth century. That fire warmed and danced among many of us for several generations, and Dillon's evocation of Ford's era is touching and stimulating: it made me remember what kind of architect I wanted to be."

—Frank D. Welch, FAIA

O'Neil Ford (1905-1982) was the most influential Texas architect of the twentieth century. A technological innovator who bridged Texas' rural past and urban future, he taught three generations of architects how to adapt vernacular forms and materials to modern conditions. Widely known for his many projects in San Antonio and Dallas, Ford also designed buildings from Laredo, Texas, to Saratoga Springs, New York, over the course of a sixty-year career.

In this book, David Dillon undertakes the first critical study of Ford's architecture in both its regional and national contexts. In particular, Dillon explores Ford's links to the regional and eclectic movements of the 1920s and 1930s, his use of postwar technology and materials (lift-slab, pre-stressed concrete shells, new metals), and his influence on other architects in Texas and the Southwest. Quotes from the author's wide-ranging interviews with O'Neil Ford in the last years of his life, as well as with his partners, relatives, friends, and critics, give the text firsthand vividness.