Charles Edward Pratt

Charles Edward Pratt
Architect
Born	(1911-07-15)15 July 1911 Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Died	24 February 1996(1996-02-24) (aged 84) Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Other names	Ned Pratt
Occupation	Architect
Years active	1938-1990
Known for	West Coast Modern architecture
Notable work	Pratt House, Dal Grauer Substation, B.C. Electric Building, Tilden Drive-Yourself Office, University of British Columbia War Memorial Gymnasium
Olympic medal record Men's Rowing Representing  Canada 1932 Los Angeles Double sculls

Olympic medal record
Men's Rowing
Representing  Canada
	1932 Los Angeles	Double sculls

Charles Edward "Ned" Pratt FRAIC (15 July 1911 – 24 February 1996) was a Canadian rower and architect who competed in the 1932 Summer Olympics and later became a principal of the Vancouver firm Thompson Berwick and Pratt and Partners. He was a major influence upon, and designer of, Modern architecture in Vancouver.

Pratt was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and moved to Vancouver, Canada in 1921, at the age of 10. He attended the University of British Columbia from 1930-1933 and participated in the 1932 Summer Olympics Men’s Double Sculls in Los Angeles, with Noël de Mille. The pair won a bronze medal for Canada. In 1980, his Double Sculls partnership was inducted into the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame.

Pratt studied architecture at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1938. In 1939, Pratt joined the firm Sharp and Thompson, became a principal in 1945, and transformed the firm Sharp and Thompson, Berwick and Pratt and Partners into the largest and most active architectural firm in western Canada.The primary architectural approach of the firm, and of Vancouver as a whole, was to imitate the traditional Beaux-Arts architecture of 19th-century Europe, but Pratt became an influential proponent of the relatively new clean-lined International Style of 20th-century architecture. In 1949, he incorporated an architectural manifesto for future West Coast homes into a high-profile exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery entitled "Design for Living." His design of his own 1951 home in West Vancouver adhered to his manifesto and was one of the first post-and-beam structures to use floor-to-ceiling windows, a form he popularized on the West Coast.In 1952, his Tilden Drive Yourself Office, whose floor-to-ceiling sheer glass and exposed steel framework were radical for downtown Vancouver at the time, won a Massey Silver Medal.

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