A Brief History of CRS
In 1946, William Caudill and John Rowlett, two architecture professors at the
College of Texas A&M, became partners and founded the architecture firm
of Caudill and Rowlett in Austin, Texas. To start the firm, the two men combined
their readjustment allowances from the Navy, a sum of $1000, which also represented
the total assets of each partner. After a difficult first year, in part due
to the nation's slow readjustment to civilian activity after WWII, Caudill and
Rowlett relocated their office to College Station at the Southgate Center.
In 1948 Wallie Scott, Caudill's former student, joined the partnership and
the firm became Caudill Rowlett Scott, Architects. The same year, William Peña,
another former student of Caudill and Rowlett, became the fourth partner of
the firm but requested to leave the firm's name unchanged.
During the first two years, most of the firm's work came through the design
of houses in Texas and Oklahoma. But in 1948, in large part due to Caudill's
book Space for Teaching (1941) and John Rowlett's degrees in architecture and
education, Caudill Rowlett Scott landed their first project with an elementary
school in Blackwell, Oklahoma. Through this project, CRS pioneered the revolution
in schoolhouse design that would come into fruition across the United States
during the 1950s. The Blackwell school project was also significant because
it was here that CRS developed the "squatter" technique. Because of
the long commute between the project site and the firm's office, a lot of time,
energy, money and ideas were wasted. To conquer this problem, the partners set
up a temporary office and "squatted" at the school site until all
the design issues with the school board were resolved. This idea was so effective
that CRS incorporated it in their future projects.
The firm wrote about its innovative methods and theories in magazines and a
book (Toward Better School Design, 1954), expanded steadily, and became renowned
for its expertise in school design. In 1952, John Rowlett opened the firm's
first regional office in Oklahoma City, and in 1957, the firm opened another
office in Corning, New York. The same year, CRS became one of the first architectural
firms to incorporate. When the main office relocated to Houston in 1958, it
was immediately the largest architectural firm in the city, with seven partners
(Bill Caudill, John Rowlett, Wallie Scott, William Peña, Tom Bullock,
Ed Nye, and Charles Lawrence).
By the 1960s, CRS had become an integrated design firm, famous for its team
approach which combined the efforts of architects, engineers, and planners.
The firm ventured into higher education and health care facilities projects
during this decade. It was also at this time that the architectural projects
became international in scope as CRS began work in Saudi Arabia.
In 1971, the firm went public under its new name, CRS Design Associates. During
this decade, the firm continued to expand as it acquired several smaller companies,
including Interlock, Inc., a management consulting firm; A.A. Matthews (AAM),
a construction engineering firm; and Stevens, Thompson & Runyan (STR), an
engineering company. Dr. Ghaith Pharaon, a Saudi multimillionaire, created headlines
in 1978 when he purchased 20 percent of the corporation's stock.
CRS Group, Inc. became CRSS in 1983 when it acquired J.E. Sirrine, a process
engineering company. Ironically, William Caudill died the same year, without
witnessing this last transformation in what once had been a small town business
to the largest architecture/engineering/construction corporation in the U.S.
The CRS Center was approved by the Board of Regents of the Texas A&M University
System in 1990. The purpose of the CRS Center is to advance innovation and leadership
in the design and construction industry.
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