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The Spokane branch of the Paci c National Bank of Washington was designed by Bill Trogdon (Trogdon Smith Grossman) in 1974 – and received a citation for outstanding urban design from the Spokane chapter of the AIA. Today, at 85 years old and of cially retired, Trogdon occasionally mentors young architects at his son’s rm in Seattle. Photo courtesy of
Bill Trogdon.
Perhaps Spokane’s best-known visual artist, Harold Balazs has collaborated with a number of architects over
the years, designing doors, lights, hardware, or simply incorporating his unique vision into the design of the building itself. The concrete wall shown below, from Kundig’s Unitarian Church on 8th Avenue, was achieved by placing cut Styrofoam blocks into the forms. Photo courtesy of Moritz Kundig.
Forty years of architecture (left to right): Great Northwest Federal Savings and Loan, Spokane, 1975 (Tan Brookie Kundig); Unitarian Church, Spokane, 1961 (McClure & Adkison); interior, Unitarian Church; McNeil Island Penitentiary chapel, Steilacoom, 1962; exterior, McNeil Island Penitentiary chapel; Berman residence, Spokane, 1992; interior, Berman residence. Photos courtesy of Moritz Kundig.
Harold Balazs
Bill Trogdon
“Some even considered it the best
Kundig entered a local competition to design a residence for Neal Fosseen, who later became mayor of Spokane.
Moritz was awarded second prize; took rst. “Nobody knew who I was,” says Kundig with a smile. “And all of a sudden everyone is asking, ‘Who is this guy who gets second prize?’ It immediately gave me an in
with the other architects in town.”
That’s when Brooks & Walker called. Responding to the siren song of Modernism, Kundig left Whitehouse Price, joined the WWP design team, and did many of the working drawings for the new facility. At the same time, he entered another competition – this time a national one – for the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Museum in Oklahoma City. Kundig took fourth.
At the completion of the WWP project, Kundig stayed on with Brooks, and Trogdon joined Walker & McGough. Brooks offered Kundig a position as associate in his rm. But he wasn’t ready to commit. “I didn’t want to be a second ddle,” he says. Walker, McGough & Trogdon hired him away from Brooks; six months later the rm ran out of work, and Kundig found himself without a job.
“Somehow, things happened.”
Kundig had never intended to stay in America. Traveling abroad was something most young Swiss did after college – for one or two years at the most. Now, it seemed, was an opportunity to go back. The family of four (Henry, their second son, had been born just months earlier) returned to Switzerland, where Kundig found work at an architect’s of ce in Winterthur.
“People paid well,” he recalls. “I made more money in Switzerland than in Spokane. But I didn’t like working there. It’s very hierarchical.” Circumstances eventually led the couple back to Spokane, where Moritz and Dora’s third child, Sylvia, was born soon after their arrival. Kundig was hired by McClure & Adkison, one of the foremost Modernist rms in town. “Spokane had quite a group of younger architects that were really very talented,” says Kundig. “But McClure, I always thought, was the most talented of all.”
The Kundigs were members of Spokane’s Unitarian Church, which at the time met in the Glover Mansion on 8th Avenue. The congregation had grown to the point where it needed a larger space, and Moritz, in association with McClure & Adkison, was hired to design a chapel. Noted Spokane artist and fellow Unitarian
contributed to the project, creating a unique undulating pattern in the concrete walls and designing light xtures made from rusty steel pipes. “We did something that’s better than either of us could have done alone,” recalls Balazs, “because we respected each other’s work.”
The building was inaugurated in 1961 and received an award from the Spokane chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). “It turned out to be a real jewel,” says Kundig.
Modern building in town.”