pp. 144 illusts #0219 (Architect’s stamp on fep)Texas architectural legend O’Neil Ford has been called the most famous architect nobody knows about. For a member of an infamously egotistical profession, that may have stung. But Ford, as would surprise few who knew him, was too brash and too busy to care.Known for both his charming demeanor and his cutting retorts (sick of the the “voluminous spewing of writing about architecture,” he detested clever and trivial modern design), Ford was an early modernist with a humble respect for craftsmanship and the handmade. Coming up as the taste for Arts and Crafts style transitioned to a hunger for the International Style, he favored streamlined shapes but craved natural materials, which he called “old-age insurance for buildings.” For him, true inspiration came by reflecting the simple Texas landscape, and the naturalistic work of Alvar Aalto; Frank Lloyd Wright was simply an “egomaniac … always trying to be exotic.”