Rapp and Rapp Architects

The story of the Rapp family architects covers more than 100 years, from an expanding American frontier through the Modernist mid-twentieth century. Family patriarch Isaac Rapp’s buildings contributed to the fast-growing development of Carbondale, Illinois, while four of his sons opened two separate firms, each renowned in its own way. The Chicago firm C. W. & Geo. L. Rapp is best remembered for elegant movie palace designs during the 1920s while the work of their brothers I. H. & W. M. Rapp of Trinidad, Colorado, brought civilizing structure to the Southwest. Their Santa Fe Style pueblo revival architecture is still influential. W. M. Rapp’s son Mason G. Rapp carried the Chicago firm through the lean years of the Great Depression and World War II and into the prosperous 1950s, adjusting their styles to the times. Through it all Rapp & Rapp never left the theatre work that defined the early firm, culminating in the early 1960s with Detroit’s influential New Fisher Theatre.