| History | Donald Leslie Johnson (2/1/1930/–), architect, academic and architectural historian, was born in Bremerton, Washington State in the United States and graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Washington in 1957. He then undertook a master’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania, studying under Louis I. Kahn, graduating in 1961.
In 1957 Johnson joined Johnson-Austin Architects, Tacoma, Washington as a draftsman, moving to C.V. Rueger and Associates, Architects in 1958. From 1958 to 1960 he worked at the architectural firm of Harbeson, Hough, Livingston and Larson in Philadelphia before returning to Washington to work at Grant, Copeland and Chervenak, Architects in Seattle from 1960 to 1961. From 1962 to 1965 he was employed by a number of firms in Tucson, Arizona and then joined Cain, Nelson and Wares, Architects, Tucson as a design associate. In 1957 and 1961 he worked as a designer/draftsman at Bassetti and Morse, Architects, Seattle, Washington. During these years he also taught design, architectural design, theory and architectural history at the University of Arizona, the University of Adelaide, South Australia, and Washington State University. In 1972 he accepted a position at Flinders University where he taught architectural history until he retired in 1988.
Johnson has published widely in books, book chapters, articles in academic and professional journals, conference papers, encyclopaedia entries and reviews. From 1977 his research focused on Australian architecture with The Architecture of Walter Burley Griffin, Macmillan, 1977; Australian Architecture 1901–51: Sources of modernism, Sydney University Press, Sydney, 1980; Canberra and Walter Burley Griffin: a bibliography of 1876–1976 and a guide to sources, Oxford University Press, 1980, and, with Donald Langmead, The Adelaide City Plan: fiction and fact, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 1986. He then broadened his scope, publishing Frank Lloyd Wright versus America: the 1930s, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1990. He again collaborated with Donald Langmead in Makers of 20th Century Modern Architecture, Greenwood Press, Westport, 1997 and Architectural Excursions: Frank Lloyd Wright, Holland and Europe, Greenwood Press, Westport, 2000. The Fountainheads: Wright, Rand, the FBI, and Hollywood was published in 2005. His books Parks for City People: London to Adelaide to Garden City and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Concrete Adobe are due for release in 2011.
Johnson was founder and founding director of the Australian studies program at Flinders University. He taught architectural history in the Fine Arts program. In the 1970s he began collecting, accessioning and storing the archives of South Australian architects retired or retiring from private practice. In addition to using the material in his own research he curated several exhibitions. In 1990 he donated his entire collection to the School of the Built Environment at the South Australian Institute of Technology, a predecessor institution of the University of South Australia (UniSA). His collection became the Architecture Archives, and he was inaugural director. Johnson has been an Adjunct Professor of Architectural History at UniSA since 1995. He was made a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 2005.
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