Pietro Belluschi was born in 1899 in Ancona, Italy. After serving in the Italian army during World War I, he earned a degree in civil engineering at the University of Rome in 1922. He then came to the United States to attend Cornell University, where he earned a graduate degree in engineering in 1925. That same year, he moved to Portland, Oregon, to work in the office of architect A. E. Doyle. Belluschi had become the firm's chief designer by 1927, and after A. E. Doyle died in 1928, Belluschi ran the firm; in 1942, he purchased it and renamed it as Pietro Belluschi, Architect.
Belluschi designed a number of buildings in the Pacific Northwest in the 1930s and 1940s, including the Portland Art Museum, the Equitable Building, churches, and residences. His works were noted for their modernist style.
In 1950, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's School of Architecture named Belluschi as dean. Belluschi then sold his practice to the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, though he continued to design and do consulting work. He retired from M.I.T. in 1965, and in 1973 he returned to Portland. Belluschi died in 1994.
Source: "Pietro Belluschi (1899-1994)," by Leland Roth, Oregon Encyclopedia,
The Edris Morrison Studio was a portrait photography studio in Portland, Oregon, run by photographer and theater actor Edris Morrison Cox (1903-1997). In 1946, it moved into a building at 1222 SW Broadway that Pietro Belluschi had designed specifically for the studio. The studio moved to SW Scholls Ferry Road in 1984.
Sources: Articles in the Oregonian, 1946-1997.
The collection consists of blueprints of the architectural plans for the Edris Morrison Studio on SW Broadway in Portland, Oregon. There are one bound set of 11 sheets of plans and two loose sheets of plans. The plans show details, sections, and elevations for the studio's doorway and interiors.
Collection is open for research.
The Oregon Historical Society owns the materials in the Research Library and makes available reproductions for research, publication, and other uses. The Society does not necessarily hold copyright to all materials in the collections. In some cases, permission for use may require seeking additional authorization from copyright owners.
Edris Morrison Studio architectural plans, Coll 901, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
Gift of the Robert M. Lindahl family, care of Cynthia Lindahl, April 2022 (RL2022-049).
The bulk of Belluschi's architectural papers at the Oregon Historical Society Research Library are designated Coll 2.
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