 1912 District Court and Police Station, Salem   1931 L Street Bathhouse, Boston  1925 East Boston High School  1948 Housing for the Elderly, Boston  1949 Fire Department Headquarters, Boston  1950 Welfare and Recreation Building, Boston  1958 Alice Shaw Junior High School, Swampscott  1960 Catholic High School, Concord  2004 Oblate Novitiate House Meeting Hall, Tewksbury |
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Born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1887, John M. Gray established his architectural practice in Boston in 1912. He received his degrees from the Carnegie Institute in 1908 and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1910, and continued his education for an additional year at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Returning to Boston, he won the competition to design the Salem Court House and Police Station in 1911. This project received wide acclaim, and the firm began designing other municipal projects in Boston and the surrounding communities. Among those early projects for the City of Boston were East Boston High School (1925), Thomas Kenney School (1926), and the William Ellery Channing School (1926). As the practice continued to grow, the firm specialized in educational, municipal, ecclesiastical, and multi-family housing projects, completing in the 1930's Boston's "L" Street Bath House (1932) and Tunnel Administration Building (1932).
The architecture of the firm reflected John Gray's training in the Beaux-Arts tradition. Central to his designs were the notions of proportion, the context of a building to its environment, symmetry, and monumentality. A specialization in ecclesiastic design developed early for the firm. This work began with the design of Our Lady of The Bay Church in Hull (1923), and continued with St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Salem (1932), and other commissions for schools, rectories and parish buildings throughout New England. Following his graduation from MIT in 1938, John M. Gray Jr. (Jack) joined the firm. He brought the contemporary concepts of modern architecture to the practice. This influenced the work of the firm, and designs became simpler in form and detail, addressing new concepts of architecture such as volume, regularity, avoidance of applied decoration, and functionalism versus aestheticism. The practice was organized as a small studio. Collaboration with student architects from local architectural schools was an important aspect of this studio concept and John Gray's vision for the firm. Over the years this studio concept has been continued, allowing particular focus for each project and resulting in designs that are representative of the unique context and design program for each project. In 1940 John Gray's second oldest son, Francis J. Gray (Frank), joined the firm following his graduation from Holy Cross College. His career plans, however, were interrupted by World War II, and he served in the United States Navy for four years. Returning to attend Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he received his Masters Degree in City Planning 1948, he again began working in the practice. Into the next decade the commissions increased to include projects for the telecommunications industry, churches, elementary schools and high schools for the Archdiocese of Boston, academic commissions for the State of Massachusetts College System, and projects for the Boston Housing Authority. Between 1948 and 1959 the firm completed buildings such as the Housing of the Elderly in Brighton (1948), the City of Boston Fire Department Headquarters (1949), Boston Welfare and Recreation Building (1950), Auditorium and Gymnasium at Framingham State College, the Oliver Street Fire Station (1952) of the City of Boston, the Science Building at Lowell State College (1953), and a Classroom and Laboratory Building at Worcester State College (1954). Through the next decade the firm continued work for clients such as the New England Telephone Company, the City of Boston, and the Archdiocese of Boston. Over fifty projects were completed for the expanding New England Telephone Company, including twenty new buildings. Other work included the Alice Shaw Junior High School High School in Swampscott (1958), a new Catholic High School in concord (1960), and Bates Elementary School in Salem (1971). In 1972 Jack Gray died at the age of 52, cutting short a career that included the design of over 30 buildings. Two years later, in 1974, Frank’s son Dennis J. Gray jointed the firm, and for the next four years three generations of Gray architects worked together in the Boston Office. John M. Gray, the founder of the firm, died in 1978 at the age of 91, completing a career in architecture that spanned seven decades. Frank Gray managed the firm until his death in 1984, and following the tradition of the practice that was started by his grandfather, Dennis Gray continued to undertake commissions for the City of Boston, renovating the Fire Department Headquarters originally designed by the firm in 1949, designing churches and parish buildings, and master planning for state parks and historic landscapes. In 1990 the firm received an award for Excellence in Urban Design from the American Institute of Architects for the Turners Falls Heritage State Park Master Plan. The firm incorporated under the name Gray Architects Inc. in 1994. Recent projects continue to reflect Gray Architect’s rich history, including work in the academic, ecclesiastical, and corporate fields of design. Recently completed were The Learning Prep School addition in Newton (2002), the design of a new gymnasium for St. John's Preparatory School in Danvers, scheduled for construction in 2004, the St. Theresa Parish Center in Reading (2002), the Woodlands Retirement Community in Plympton (2002), and a new meeting hall for the Oblate Fathers in Tewksbury scheduled for construction in 2003. |