Benjamin C. Thompson
July 3, 1918 – August 17, 2002
Benjamin C. Thompson was an American architect. He was one of eight architects who founded The Architects' Collaborative (TAC) in 1945 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the most notable firms in post-war modernism, and then started his own firm, Benjamin Thompson and Associates (BTA), in 1967. His interest in architecture was nurtured by travels in Europe with his mother, an artist and art collector. In the fall of 1938 he entered the Yale School of Architecture, where he earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1941. He served for four years in the United States Navy during World War II as a Lieutenant aboard a Destroyer Escort in the North Atlantic and Pacific theaters. Near the end of the war, Thompson's ship docked in Boston, and he was introduced to Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus School and then head of the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
In 1953, he founded Design Research in Cambridge, a company that provided interior furnishings and accessories. His iconic five-story, all-glass showcase retail store for Design Research was opened in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1968. Design Research was the first US importer and retailer of the Finnish clothing and textiles of Marimekko. The firm eventually added stores in New York (1964) and San Francisco (1965). In 1969, he designed the company's revolutionary second Cambridge store, notable for its extreme openness and use of glass. In 1970, Thompson lost financial control and ownership of Design Research.
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