Donal McLaughlin

Donal McLaughlin (July 26, 1907 - September 27, 2009) was an American architect who played a major role in the design of the Flag of the United Nations.

McLaughlin was born on July 26, 1907, in Manhattan and was raised in the Bronx. His choice to pursue architecture mirrored that of his grandfather, James W. McLaughlin, who designed the Cincinnati Art Museum. McLaughlin attended Yale University, where his thesis addressed the issues of circular design. He graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1933 from the Yale School of Architecture. He earned an architecture diploma from the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in 1937.

After graduation, despite the difficult economic climate of the Great Depression, he was able to get a position with the National Park Service in Washington, D.C.. That led to positions in New York City with the industrial design firm of Raymond Loewy and Walter Dorwin Teague, where he worked on the Eastman Kodak and U.S. Steel pavilions at the 1939 New York World's Fair in New York. He also designed the interior of Tiffany & Co.'s flagship store, located at Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in Manhattan, which has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.