Macklin, Harold (1885-1947)

Birthplace:

Portland, Dorset, England

Residences:

  • Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Trades:

  • Architect

Styles & Forms:

Georgian Revival; Modernist

Harold Macklin (April 11, 1885-November 14, 1947) was an English-born architect who became one of the leading members of the profession in Winston-Salem during the 1920s. On his own and in affiliation with other architects, he planned several of the city’s principal landmarks of the period and supervised construction of others designed by out-of-state, nationally active architects. Most of this account comes from Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage.

Like some of his contemporaries such as Luther Lashmit (1899-1989) of the Winston-Salem firm of Northup and O’Brien, Macklin worked easily in a range of architectural styles as well as building types, providing designs in especially elegant versions of Georgian and other neoclassically influenced modes adapted to suit modern needs but also, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, employing sleek lines and geometric forms of the modernist esthetic. His practice did not take on very large projects, nor did he plan a great number of buildings, but he was known for his consistent and graceful refinement of proportion and detail.

Born on April 11, 1885 in the English village of Portland, Dorset, Harold Macklin was educated in Salisbury and London and apprenticed in the firm of Fogerty and Parnell in Bournemouth, Hants, where he worked for two years as an “improver” and as a draftsman for three before moving to Canada by 1906. Harold’s younger brother Charles resided in Oklahoma City, and Canadian border crossing records indicate that Harold may have joined him around 1909. Macklin stated in his American Institute of Architects (AIA) application that he began practicing architecture in July 1910. Early on, he began a pattern of collaborating with other architects and engineers; his earliest partnership was with Oklahoma City architect Walter Roy Faught in that city and Wichita, Kansas. During World War I, Macklin moved to Columbia, S. C. in 1918, where he was chief draftsman for P. H. Norcross at Camp Jackson. In 1919 he married Isma Ingle Stultz, which precipitated his move to Winston-Salem. There he worked initially with contractor Harry F. Hann for two years. He became a licensed architect on January 28, 1920, opened an office in the Wachovia Bank and Trust Building, and joined the AIA on March 10, 1921.

As the tobacco and textile manufacturing city of Winston-Salem grew into North Carolina’s largest and wealthiest city during the 1920s, Macklin was prominent among the local and out-of-town architects who shaped its development. His firm planned myriad commercial, educational, institutional, religious, and residential buildings. His offices in the heart of the city were in the 1926 Gilmer Building and later in the 1925 Realty Building, both of which he had designed. His work garnered widespread recognition when the North Carolina Chapter of the AIA (NCAIA) named his 1927 Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel Building 1, a masterful rendition of Georgian Revival style, as the year’s best commercial building design.

The late 1920s brought important commissions and collaborations. He worked with architects in the New York office of the YMCA to plan Winston-Salem’s Spruce Street YMCA, built in 1927-1928 as another large Georgian Revival building in red brick Flemish bond with classical details in limestone. In the same year, he supervised construction of the imposing Gothic Revival style St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, designed by the nationally recognized architect Ralph Adams Cram of the Boston firm of Cram and Ferguson. Macklin’s office expanded with the addition of architect William Roy Wallace, who had worked for Philadelphia architect Charles Barton Keen, and the firm became known as Macklin and Wallace.

The 1930s began auspiciously. In 1929 Macklin had prepared plans for a high school for Winston-Salem’s black students, which was built in 1931 and named Atkins High School; it was designed in collaboration with the Rosenwald Fund’s consulting architect, Walter R. McCormack of Cleveland, Ohio (see Macklin’s drawings for the school in the William Roy Wallace Collection, NCSU Libraries Special Collections Research Center). The 1931 Chatham Block at 301-311 West Fourth Street, a striking blend of classicism and modernism with streamlined limestone façades, was the firm’s last significant commercial commission before the hiatus in building during the onset of the Great Depression. The firm dissolved in 1932, when Macklin took a short sabbatical and Wallace organized an independent office. Because the tobacco industry fared better than many businesses, construction in Winston-Salem did not suffer as severely as in some locales.

Macklin resumed work as the economy recovered, including some federally assisted work projects. He planned the 1939 Bowman Gray Memorial Stadium with public works commissioner R. A. Thomas for the Works Progress Administration. Other projects soon followed, including the 1940 Old Town Club Clubhouse; the 1941 Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel Building 2, and the 1942 YWCA Administration Building. Following World War II’s delay in civilian construction, his firm prepared plans for the 1946 Summit School. After Macklin’s death in 1947 at age 62, the contractors completed one of his last designs, the large Mineral Springs High School, in 1949. Architect Garrell R. Stinson, who had been a senior draftsman in the firm of Macklin and Wallace from 1930 to 1932, was employed in various firms, then returned to associate with Macklin and Stinson and carried on the firm for several more years. Several other architects worked with or for Macklin and the successor firms. A few of Macklin’s architectural records are held in the William Roy Wallace Collection at North Carolina State University Libraries Special Collections (see http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/findingaids/mc00517), and they can be searched for by the building name. See Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage, on the successor firms.

  • Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).
Sort Building List by:
  • Ardmore Baptist Church

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1942

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    501 Miller St., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Religious

    Images Published In:

    Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).

    Note:

    The dignified, classically detailed brick church with multi-stage spire was designed to emulate the Second Ponce de Leon Baptist Church in Atlanta.


  • Atkins High School

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect; Walter R. McCormack, consulting architect
    Dates:

    1929; 1931

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    1215 N. Cameron Ave., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Educational

    Note:

    The large, brick high school in restrained classical revival style was designed to serve the black students of Winston-Salem and funded in part by the Rosenwald Fund. It is said to have been the largest urban high school to benefit from that important philanthropic organization. The Rosenwald fund donated $50,000 of the $350,000 cost of construction, representing the strong local support. Its 60 rooms—including not only 27 classrooms but a gym, cafeteria, laboratories, and an auditorium—were planned to accommodate 1,140 students . Largely because of the customary employment of black workers in the tobacco industry, as well as the presence of a teachers’ college, now Winston-Salem State University (WSSU), Winston-Salem had a large black population including numerous middle-class families. The school was designed in collaboration with the Rosenwald Fund’s consulting architect, Walter R. McCormack of Cleveland, Ohio (see Macklin’s drawings in the William Roy Wallace Collection at North Carolina State University). The school was named for Simon Atkins, founder and longtime president of present WSSU.


  • Bowman Gray Memorial Stadium

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1938

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    1250 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Recreational

    Images Published In:

    Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).

    Note:

    Funded by the city of Winston-Salem with a Works Progress Administration allocation and a donation from the family of Bowman Gray, the recently deceased president of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, the expansive recreational complex was among the Macklin firm’s largest undertakings. A crescent or horse-shoe-shaped stadium of reinforced concrete overlooks an oval asphalt track and a grass playing field, which accommodate a variety of sports and other events. The opening event of 1938 was a music festival organized by the local Mozart Club, which attracted 5,000 spectators. Renovations have taken place over the years.


  • Chatham Block

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1931

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    301-311 W. 4th St., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Commercial

    Images Published In:

    Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).

    Note:

    Representative of shifts in taste in the 1930s, the commercial block features austere façades that combine elements of restrained classicism and modernism.


  • Gilmer Building

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1926

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    420 W. 4th St., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Commercial

    Images Published In:

    Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).

    Note:

    The multi-bay commercial building is faced with terra cotta with polychromed classical detailing. Macklin had his office here at one time.


  • Mineral Springs High School

    Contributors:
    Fowler-Jones Construction Co., contractors; Harold Macklin, architect; Garrell R. Stinson, architect
    Dates:

    1948-1949

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    4559 Ogburn Ave., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Educational

    Note:

    The streamlined modernist school was completed after Macklin’s death by his partner Stinson.


  • Old Town Club Clubhouse

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1939-1940

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    2875 Old Town Club Rd., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Recreational

    Images Published In:

    Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).

    Note:

    The clubhouse for the country club supported by Mary Reynolds Babcock and her husband Charles Babcock is a brick structure in a restrained Colonial Revival design, with outdoor seating overlooking the golf course; it has been updated and expanded over the years.


  • Realty Building

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1923

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    216 W. 4th St., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Commercial

    Images Published In:

    Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).

    Note:

    The narrow, 5-story office building features brick façades in English bond and cast stone classical details. Architects Macklin and William Roy Wallace had their offices here.


  • Spruce Street YMCA

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1928

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    315 N. Spruce St., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Recreational

    Images Published In:

    Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).

    Note:

    The large 4-story brick building displays Macklin’s use of the Colonial Revival for a modern institutional building containing dormitory rooms and various sports facilities including a gymnasium and a basement swimming pool.


  • St. Paul's Episcopal Church

    Contributors:
    Cram and Ferguson, architects; Ralph Adams Cram, architect; Jacobs and Young, contractors; Harold Macklin, supervising architect
    Dates:

    1928-1929

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    520 Summit St., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Religious

    Images Published In:

    Catherine W. Bishir, North Carolina Architecture (1990).
    Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern, A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina (2003).


  • Summit School

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1946

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    2100 Reynolda Rd., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Educational

    Images Published In:

    Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).

    Note:

    Macklin designed the school to align with current school planning ideals and to respond to post World War II materials shortages. It was a simply detailed, flat-roofed brick structure, which received additions over the years.


  • Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel Building 1

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1927

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    418 N. Marshall St., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Commercial

    Note:

    The building won an AIA award design award for 1927. Macklin’s creative mastery of the Georgian Revival mode in proportions and detail as applied to a modern building function is well represented in the 3-story brick building that combines themes from Philadelphia’s Independence and Congress Halls. Within the Flemish bond brick walls is a sturdy steel frame to carry the heavy newspaper presses.


  • Winston-Salem Journal and Sentinel Building 2

    Contributors:
    Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1941

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    419 N. Spruce St., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Commercial

    Note:

    A more austere complement to the same newspaper’s earlier Georgian Revival building, the 2-story building in Flemish bond brickwork features simply treated windows and a formal entrance.


  • YWCA Administration Building

    Contributors:
    George H. Black, brickmaker; Frank L. Blum, contractor; Harold Macklin, architect
    Dates:

    1942

    Location:
    Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
    Street Address:

    1201 Glade St., Winston-Salem, NC

    Status:

    Standing

    Type:

    Recreational

    Images Published In:

    Heather Fearnbach, Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage (2015).

    Note:

    For the administration building for the local YWCA, Macklin employed a domestic scale and form and restrained Georgian Revival details. He specified that the bricks would be made by hand by Winston-Salem’s master brickmason George H. Black (1879-1980), an African American craftsman who also made many bricks for Old Salem.


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