Edmund Bacon

Edmund Norwood Bacon (May 2, 1910 – October 14, 2005) was a noted American urban planner, architect, educator and author. During his tenure as the Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission from 1949 to 1970, his visions shaped today's Philadelphia, the city in which he was born, to the extent that he is sometimes described as "The Father of Modern Philadelphia." Bacon was born in Philadelphia, the son of Helen Atkinson (née Comly) and husband Ellis Williams Bacon. He was educated in architecture at Cornell University, where his senior thesis for a new civic center for Philadelphia included an urban park at the position where Philadelphia's famous LOVE Park was later built. After college, while traveling the world on a small inheritance, Bacon found work as an architect in Shanghai, China, a city that exerted a deep influence on his thinking, and Philadelphia. After a year in China, he returned to Philadelphia where he worked for architect William Pope Barney. ... full article at wikipedia