Architect, United States Paul Cret can be seen as one of the leading examples of the architectural generation that formed the bridge between neoclassicism and modernism. Whereas many American architects, starting with Richard Morris Hunt, traveled to France to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Cret was a native. Born in Lyons in 1876, he studied at the École from 1897 to 1903, absorbing its principles of rationality and symmetry and its devotion to the sources of classicism. Although he distinguished himself in his studies and might have flourished professionally in France, in 1903 Cret accepted a position on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. While there, he helped establish the university’s school “of architecture as one of the most influential in the United States, counting among his students Louis I.Kahn, who would go on to prominence in later life. In his own practice, Cret concentrated heavily on civic buildings, to which he brought a steadily more re...