Karl Kamrath was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 and tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

 player. He, along with Frederick James MacKie, Jr., created the Houston-based architectural firm Mackie and Kamrath. The firm's buildings reflected the principles of Organic Architecture

Organic architecture

Organic architecture is a philosophy of architecture which promotes harmony between human habitation and the natural world through design approaches so sympathetic and well integrated with its site that buildings, furnishings, and surroundings become part of a unified, interrelated...

 and Usonian architecture, an outcome of Kamrath's friendship with Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

. His career spanned over five decades during which he designed residential, commercial, institutional and government buildings. Prior to founding MacKie and Kamrath, Karl Kamrath worked for Pereira and Pereira, the Interior Studios of Marshall Field and Company, and the Architectural Decorating Company in Chicago, Illinois.

Karl Fred Kamrath was born in Enid, Oklahoma to G.A. and Martha Kreplin Kamrath on April 25, 1911. While still a child, Kamrath's family moved to Austin, Texas. Throughout his life, Kamrath was an avid tennis player, and married fellow tennis player Eugenie Sampson in 1934. That same year that he graduated the University of Texas with a Bachelor's degree in architecture. In 1955, Karl Kamrath was elected as a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), an organization he was affiliated with since 1939. He became the Houston AIA chapter president in 1960 and acted as the chairman of the Frank Lloyd Wright Memorial Committee from 1960 to 1962. He was inducted into the University of Texas Longhorn Hall of Fame in 1978 and the Texas Tennis Hall of Fame in 1984.

Major Buildings

• Phyllis Wheatley High School (1948)
• Temple Emanu-El (1949, with Lenard R. Gabert)
• Houston Contemporary Arts Association Museum (1949, demolished)
• Dow Chemical Company complex, Freeport (1953)
• Schlumberger Corporation complex (1953) now University of Houston Energy Research Center
• Humble Oil Research Center (1954)
• St. John the Divine Church (1954, with H. A. Salisbury)
• University of Texas M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute (1954, altered), featured in TIME magazine in December 1954
• Commercial Standard Insurance Company Building, Fort Worth (1956)
• Farnsworth and Chambers Building (1957) an early office facility for NASA
  NASA
  The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
  
   and Project Mercury
  Project Mercury
  In January 1960 NASA awarded Western Electric Company a contract for the Mercury tracking network. The value of the contract was over $33 million. Also in January, McDonnell delivered the first production-type Mercury spacecraft, less than a year after award of the formal contract. On February 12,...
  
  , now Houston Parks Gragg Building
• Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church, Bunker Hill Village (1957, 1973)
• Temple Rodef Shalom, Waco (1962)
• First Pasadena State Bank Building, Pasadena, Texas (1962)
• Science and Research Building, University of Houston (1968)
• Travertine Nature Center, Chickasaw National Recreation Area
  Chickasaw National Recreation Area
  Chickasaw National Recreation Areais a National Recreation Area situated in the foothills of the Arbuckle Mountains in south-central Oklahoma near Sulphur.-History:...
  
  . Sulphur, Oklahoma (1968)
• Big Three Industries Building (1974)
• Kamrath Second Residence, on Tiel Way in River Oaks, Houston (1953)
• George P. Mitchell house, Piney Point Village (1963, demolished), profiled in Fortune Magazine
• C.B. Ellis house, on Green River Trail in Ft. Worth, Texas (1966)

Further reading

• Strom, Steven, Mackie & Kamrath Architects: Guide to the Architectural Collection, Houston Public Library, 2000, softcover booklet.
• Miller, Scott Reagan, The Architecture of MacKie and Kamrath, Houston, Texas : Rice University, 1993.