Johnpaul Jones (born July 24, 1941) is an American architect and landscape architect, partner in Seattle-based architecture firm Jones & Jones Architects and Landscape Architects, best known for innovative habitat immersion method design of zoo exhibits. A person who self-identifies as Native American, he has also executed many projects for various Native American organizations, and was lead design consultant for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, completed 2004 in Washington, D.C. He was the first architect ever to receive the National Humanities Medal.
Education and early career
Jones was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma to Welsh-American father Johnpaul Jones and self-identified Choctaw/Cherokee mother Dolores. His maternal grandfather self-identified as Choctaw and his maternal grandmother Pearl Gurley self-identified as Choctaw/Cherokee. Neither parent had more than a grade school education. His parents marriage had largely ended by the time he was 9 years old, and he and his mother moved to Manteca, California under an Indian relocation program. In Oklahoma, he had been instructed in Native American traditions by his maternal grandmother Pearl; in California (Manteca and later Stockton) he lived in a largely Hispanic environment and at times did farm work, which was his mother's occupation.
Although he did poorly in school other than excelling in art classes and physical education, he managed to graduate from high school in 1959, and attended San Jose City College. A job as an office boy at architecture firm Higgins & Root in San Jose, combined with his drawing skills set him on the first steps of his career. With help from his boss Chester Root he entered the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, where for the first time he became a serious student, and where he began his interest in Native American architecture, more neglected in the U. of O. curriculum of the time than not. He continued to work summers at Higgins & Root.
After graduating in 1967, he moved in Seattle, working briefly for Paul Thiry, then at Dersham & Dimmick, before opening a practice on Bainbridge Island. He became increasingly involve in Native American matters, joining the Urban Indian Committee, where he first came to know Native activist Bernie Whitebear. In the early 1970s, he met landscape architect Grant Richard Jones (no relation), who was studying the Native American burial mounds of the Midwest. In 1973, he joined Grant Jones and Grant's then-wife Ilze Jones at Jones & Jones, based in the Globe Building in Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood.
Work at Jones and Jones
Zoo projects
Although his colleague Grant Jones led the pioneering immersion exhibit work on the Gorilla exhibit and the African Savannah exhibit at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo, Johnpaul Jones has led numerous zoo projects since that time. Among these are:
Tiger River Trail, San Diego Zoo
Asian elephant house, Woodland Park Zoo
Polar bear habitat, Point Defiance Zoo, Tacoma, Washington
Honolulu Zoo master plan
Plans and exhibits, Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum
African Savannah master plan and exhibits, Perth Zoo, Perth, Australia
Jake L. Mamon Gorilla Conservation Research Center, Dallas Zoo
National Zoo of Belize master plan
Source for list:
Heritage and visitors' center projects
He has also done numerous heritage and visitors' center projects. Prominent among these have been: Gene Coulon Beach Park, Renton, Washington Newcastle Beach Park Buildings, Bellevue, Washington Southeast Alaska Discovery Center, Ketchikan, Alaska (with Charles Beattisworth and Company, Inc.). Sleeping Lady Mountain Retreat and Conference Center, Leavenworth, Washington Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Phase II, Bainbridge, Washington Source for list: