Frank Chouteau Brown

Born in Minneapolis in January 1876, Frank Chouteau Brown trained at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts, the Boston Art Club, and in Europe before beginning architectural practice in Boston in 1902. Alongside his design work, he became an important voice in architecture publishing, serving as editor of Architectural Review from 1907 to 1919.

Brown also taught at Boston University, joining the faculty in 1916 and later leading the Department of Art and Architecture. His career connected architecture, education, and preservation: sources credit him with restoration and documentation work on historic New England buildings, and Historic New England notes his role in the Historic American Buildings Survey in Massachusetts.

As an author, he wrote clear, practical books on design and architectural history, including Letters & Lettering (1902), The Order of Architecture (1906), and later studies of English churches and country houses. His writing reflects the same careful attention to form, proportion, and tradition that shaped his architectural career.