Margaret Burnham Geddes (née Kelly; September 26, 1907 – February 18, 1995) was an American architect, urban planner, and activist who worked in Providence, Rhode Island. She designed several early modernist houses in southern New England with partner J. Peter Geddes and worked as a planner for the Providence Redevelopment Agency.
Early life and education
Margaret Burnham Kelly was born on September 26, 1907, in Evanston, Illinois. She was one of five children of George T. Kelly, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, and Margaret Sherman Burnham, daughter of the architect Daniel Burnham. In December 1921, the widowed Margaret Sherman Kelly married Benjamin Fairchild Stower of Sturbridge, Massachusetts. In 1922, the family relocated to Brown Street on the East Side of Providence, Rhode Island. Margaret Burnham Kelly graduated from the Wheeler School in June 1925.
Kelly entered Vassar College in the fall of 1925 and studied art and mathematics. She was a member of the track team and a news editor for The Vassar Miscellany News. Kelly was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated from Vassar in the spring of 1929.
The following fall, Kelly enrolled as an architecture student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts where she studied under William Emerson, William H. Lawrence, Paul W. Norton, and Frederick Adams. Her unbuilt senior thesis project for “A Beach Development” on Ocean Road in Narragansett, Rhode Island is similar to her later designs in its effective response to the site, careful consideration of circulation, and combination of land use planning and development. Kelly described the project as "modern, very simple and direct, and horizontal in its treatment."
Architectural and planning career
Work with Peter Geddes
After graduating from MIT, Kelly returned to her family home in Providence, Rhode Island and worked independently for several years. In 1934, she formed an architectural partnership with J. Peter Geddes, who had received his degree in architecture from Columbia University in 1926. The firm Geddes & Kelly worked predominately on residential projects and was active between 1934 and 1948, maintaining an office on the second floor of the Hospital Trust Building on Westminster Street in Providence.
Most of the firm's projects date from 1938 to 1941. The George R. Rowland House (1938) in Brookfield, Massachusetts was their first and largest house project. It is representative of their other work in its simplified version of traditional New England domestic architecture, relying on unadorned brick and bands of casement windows. In 1939, Geddes & Kelly designed two houses on Manning Street Street in Providence, one of which was a residence for Peter Geddes. In 1941, four houses designed by Geddes & Kelly were featured in Pencil Points and Architectural Forum, introducing their work to a national audience. Editors noted the buildings' "clean lines and restful surfaces" and "austere avoidance of decoration." Three of the firm's houses were included in the 1941 “Exhibition of Contemporary Rhode Island Art” at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.
Kelly and Geddes married on December 3, 1942, at which time Kelly changed her last name to Geddes and moved into the house they had designed at 29 Manning Street. The firm disbanded briefly between 1942 and 1944 due to World War II. During this time, Margaret Geddes worked as a Project Planner for the Federal Public Housing Authority in Washington, DC and as a truck driver employed by the U.S. Army, while Peter Geddes served as an Army engineer in the Pacific.
Peter Geddes formed the partnership Harkness & Geddes with Albert Harkness in 1948. Margaret Geddes worked part-time at the new firm while also pursuing independent commissions. In 1950, she designed the Scott House on Stimson Avenue in Providence. Margaret Geddes's designs were included in a 1950 architecture exhibition sponsored by the Rhode Island chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) at the Providence Art Club, where she was a lifetime member.
Planning and preservation work
Margaret Geddes left her position at Harkness & Geddes in 1956 when she was hired as a planner for the Providence Redevelopment Agency. Earlier in the 1950s, Margaret Geddes had worked as an urban planning activist and organizer, leading the community planning committee of the League of Women Voters of Providence and serving on the boards of the Providence Redevelopment Agency in 1954 and the Citizens Committee for Redevelopment in 1955.