Dorm Anderson FAIA

Dorman Anderson FAIA (1939-2006)(B Architectural Engineering WSU 1963, MArch IIT 1967, MBA UW 1987); experienced his first three years of architectural practice in the Chicago office of Mies van der Rohe, before returning to WSU to teach for the next seven years.  He departed a tenured position at WSU to join the staff at NBBJ, where he practiced from 1974 until his retirement in 2002.

His work on projects that shape the Seattle skyline and the urban fabric of cities around the world brought him in contact with civic, economic, and social cultures of great diversity -- as well as into relationships with powerful forces and figures in the world of design and development.  Key local projects include Two Union Square, Market Place Tower, Merrill Place, and the rehabilitation of the Four Seasons Olympic Hotel.

Dorm addressed the AIA Seattle Fellows/Honors Council September 12, 2001 –- in the immediate and confusing aftermath of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks.  To gather with Dorm that day somehow helped assert, at least momentarily, a sense of calm balance and orderly community, establishing a safe place where, with others, one might begin to make sense of a radically-unsettled world.  In his remarks, Dorm focused on some of the special people and situations he encountered in the course of his far-reaching career.  His self-deprecating and humorously-told stories of his modest small-town beginnings in eastern Washington and the expansion of his career to encompass major clients and significant structures offered a sense of hope and possibility -- typical outcomes of conversation with Dorm.

Supporting his work and his profound and genuine optimism about the potential of cities, his record of civic activism epitomizes the architect's commitment to the urban environment.  Among highlights of a long record of professional commitments:  service on the advisory committee for Seattle's 1985 Downtown Plan, Chair of the Pioneer Square Historic Preservation Board, the Seattle Design Review Board, Downtown Seattle Association, and AIA Seattle President 1989-90.  Among many successes, Dorm earned the honor of elevation to the AIA College of Fellows in 1992.

Dorm maintained a lifelong relationship with colleagues from the Mies office and a regard for the urban delights of Chicago -- where he took part in collegial festivities at AIA Convention in 2004.  Afflicted in the last weeks of his life with a debilitating brain syndrome, he made a special effort to attend the LifeWorks series in mid-January, where with his wife Sandy and their daughter Diane he joined in the event featuring a long-time family friend, Lara Swimmer.  In this gracious act he demonstrated the remarkable strength of character, buoyant good humor, and connection with his profession and his colleagues that throughout his life inspired the sincere respect, admiration, and affection of those who worked with and came to know him -- his many friends in the extended AIA Seattle community and around the world.