The David W. Osler Papers document the professional career of this distinguished Ann Arbor architect, between the years 1956 and 2008. The collection provides researchers with a rich body of textual and visual materials, which illuminate the design excellence for which he is well known. Encompassing architectural drawings for 90 projects and photographs of 54 buildings, these papers offer a broad documentation of Osler's distinctive work in designing residences, libraries, churches, corporate and academic buildings, and condominiums. The collection contains the following series: Professional Papers, Photographs and Architectural Drawings.
David W. Osler was born in 1921 and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, spending much of his childhood in the family home on Glazier Way. His early adventures in the surrounding seventeen acres of woods and creeks inspired his life-long love of the land and his sensitivity to site in architectural design. He graduated from Ann Arbor's University High School in 1938 and from the University of Michigan in 1942, where he studied design and illustration and was a member of the Big Ten Championship golf team.
During World War II, Osler enlisted in the Navy and served aboard the assault-transport ship, USS Thomas Jefferson, which deployed the first wave of American soldiers in their landing on Omaha Beach. After returning home in 1946, he married Connie Lorch, whom he had known since the ninth grade. Connie's father, Emil Lorch, was the founder of the University of Michigan Department of Architecture, dean of the School of Architecture and professor from 1906 to 1940. Osler and his wife Connie have three children, all of whom have chosen careers in design. Robin is the founding principal of the New York firm, EOA/ Elmslie Osler Architect, and Peter is the director of the Program of Landscape Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Molly, an interior designer in Ann Arbor, has often collaborated with her father in his architectural projects.
Osler's first professional job as an architect was with the firm of Douglas D. ("Pete") Loree, Architect. In 1957, Osler became a registered architect in the state of Michigan and established his own firm, David W. Osler, Architect, in the next year. He was among a number of distinguished architects who practiced in the Modern style in the Ann Arbor area in the middle and second half of the twentieth century. His earliest commissions were primarily single-family residences. However, over many decades, Osler developed a diverse portfolio of Ann Arbor projects, some of which included the Oslund Condominiums, Newport West Condominiums, St. Clare of Assisi Episcopal Church, the former Nellie Loving Branch of the Ann Arbor Library, Geddes Lakes Townhouses, and alterations and additions to the Ann Arbor District Library and National Bank and Trust Company. He is also known for his excellence in design of buildings across the state, among them, the Albion College International House and Gerstacker Language Center, the Williams Research Headquarters in Walled Lake, the Fife Electric Company Office and Warehouse in Novi, and the Harry S. Peterson Company Office Building in Orion Township. He was also responsible for the restoration of the historic Beaubien House (built in 1851) in Detroit, and the restoration/expansion of the Howell Carnegie District Library (built in 1906), for which he received the American Institute of Architects (AIA)/American Library Association Library Building Award in 1993.
During his 50-year career, Osler and his firm received many honors. In 1981, he was elected to the College of Fellows in the American Institute of Architects and was given the Michigan AIA Gold Medal Award in 1996, "for contributions to principled architectural problem-solving and for consistently high standards of design excellence." [1]
David W. Osler Associates, Inc., Architects, was honored as the Michigan AIA Firm of the Year Award in 2005. Over the decades, the firm received a total of twenty-two Michigan AIA Honor Awards, more than any other office of comparable size in the state, for such projects as the Oslund Condominiums, the Michigan Theater Restoration (with Quinn Evans), National Bank and Trust Company, the Kumasaka Residence, St. Clare of Assisi Episcopal Church, the Wilt Residence and the Nellie S. Loving Branch Library.
In 1983, Osler was honored as a finalist in the design competition for the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial in Washington, D.C. Of the 1421 competition entries, Osler's design was one of fifteen to receive honorable mention for his submission.
The architectural offices of Osler's firm were housed during his entire career in the historic, towered Washtenaw Light and Power sub-station (1902), located at 916 Fuller Street in Ann Arbor, which he purchased in a dilapidated state and renovated for his professional use in 1959. In addition to his 50 years of work as a distinguished architect, Osler has served as a University of Michigan School of Architecture adjunct professor and as a nine-year board member of the Washtenaw Metropolitan Planning Commission. Collateral activities on behalf of the architectural profession included service as the president of the local chapter of AIA, secretary of the Michigan AIA and member of the National AIA Committee on Design.
Osler retired from architectural practice in 2008. As a master of space, form, proportion, color and refinement, he leaves a legacy of design elegance and simplicity and has inspired his followers with his commitment to a high quality of community life through architecture.
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1. AIA Michigan Gold Medal-1996 Citation, Box 1, David W. Osler Papers, Bentley Historical Library
