Archives West Finding Aid

Georgius Y. Cannon was born in Salt Lake City in 1892, the last child of George Q. Cannon, aged 65, and Caroline Young Cannon, aged 41. As the youngest child, and one separated by some years from his older siblings, Georgius was very close to his father. The elder Cannon had known Joseph Smith, acted as a secretary to Brigham Young (his father-in-law) and served in the L.D.S. First Presidency and as an executor for Brigham Young. Georgius describes his father as a warm affectionate man totally preoccupied with the past who raised his son amidst stories of the mid-19th century world and the early year of the L.D.S. Church. With his father's death when he was nine years old and his mother's two years later, Georgius felt himself "suddenly thrust into the twentieth century."

After the death of his parents, Georgius was raised by a half brother, the son of his father by an earlier marriage, married to a half sister, the daughter of his mother by an earlier marriage. He became fascinated with architecture at age 13 when his half brother decided to build a house and never after considered any course other than to become an architect. On graduation from high school he went on a mission for the L.D.S. Church in Germany where, due to his fluency in German, he was retained for three and a half years and translated the Articles of Faith into German. After his return from Germany he attended M.I.T., graduating in 1918 at the age of 26, and then served in the United States Army.

In 1920, Cannon returned to Salt Lake City and entered the architectural firm of Cannon and Fetzer for a brief period before starting his own firm with another young architect, John Gunther. Cannon was, at this time, one of the charter members of the American Institute of Architects. After Gunther left to finish his own architecture degree at M.I.T., Cannon joined the firm of Ware and Treganza for a year and, after Ware and Treganza separated, did some work with Treganza and some on his own for a time. Cannon's recollections of these important Utah architects were published in Utah Architecture in 1962.

Finding that there was very little work available in Utah at this time, Cannon, with his wife, Phyllis Winder Cannon, and their daughter Dorothy, moved to California. There he joined the firm of an M.I.T. schoolmate, Wallace Neff, as office manager. This job, which he found tremendously educational and stimulating, lasted until 1930 and the Depression. After doing a couple of houses in Salt Lake, he worked for the Mortgage Insurance Company in Los Angeles in non-architectural capacities until 1935. By this time he was again getting work and continued in private practice until the outbreak of war in 1941.

During the war Cannon worked first in the shipyards and then in the motion picture studios until, in 1946, he went back to his own practice. Cannon continued in practice in California until 1953 when his wife died and he decided to move his practice to Salt Lake City, where he had family and friends and where a good part of his residential practice had always been. Cannon continued in active practice in Salt Lake until 1977. In that year, at the age of 85, he retired and moved to Pasadena, California to be close to his daughter.

Cannon described himself as being "born a classicist," and stated that his primary interest had always been in using the classical vocabulary in his own way, not to copy anything, but to produce a creative art of his own. Though he was interested in the International Style and in several houses he described as "contemporary," he felt that even these houses were classical "in their balance and their finish, and their detailing." Though Cannon's interest was always primarily in residential architecture and he prided himself on surviving in this most demanding and vulnerable of fields, he also did some work in both commercial and ecclesiastical architecture. His Glendale Ward Chapel, designed in 1935, won an award from the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company for its use of glass and was also influential in its use of an outdoor circulation scheme. Cannon also served on the Board of Temple Architects working on the Idaho Falls Temple and submitted a design for the Los Angeles Temple. In addition, he designed the Arlington Ward Chapel in California and, after his return to Salt Lake City, the Third and Eighth Wards in Layton and the Federal Heights Ward Chapel in Salt Lake. Cannon's only restoration job, that of the Beehive House, was also undertaken for the L.D.S. Church. The restoration was widely praised and is described in articles by Cannon in Utah Architecture (1961) and Museum News (1961). Cannon also did some commercial projects, the most notable being the design of the Little America Motel at Cheyenne, Wyoming, and acting as consulting architect for the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City.

Throughout his life, Georgius Cannon had a great interest in the architecture of early Utah and its preservation. He amassed a collection of photographs of early Utah buildings, now housed in the Utah State Historical Society, and spoke to various groups on the topic of early Utah architecture. Cannon served as President of the Utah Chapter of A.I.A. in 1956, served on the advisory council of the Utah Heritage Foundation in its early years, and was named special adviser to the Planning and Construction Committee of the Bicentennial Center for the Arts in 1976. He was particularly concerned with the indiscriminate building up of downtown Salt Lake and, in addition to speaking on the subject, authored an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, "Let's Make Salt Lake Beautiful Again," in 1973.

Georgius Cannon received various professional honors. He was elected to the College of Fellows of the A.I.A. in 1969, and in 1975 was given an Award of Appreciation by the Utah Chapter of the A.I.A, and honored by the Emeritus Club of the University of Utah.

Georgius Young Cannon died in 1987.