Warnecke, John Carl

Warnecke, John Carl
2700 McKinley Avenue Columbus, IN 47201

John Carl Warnecke is associated in Columbus, Indiana, with Mabel McDowell Adult Education Center, originally designed as an elementary school and completed in 1960. An important early work by Warnecke, the building reflects the contextual approach that became central to his career, using clustered classroom pods, open-air walkways, and landscaped space to echo the forms and rhythms of the southern Indiana countryside. Warnecke later became nationally known for major civic and memorial projects, including the John F. Kennedy gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery, the Lafayette Square plan near the White House, the Hawaii State Capitol, and the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. He studied at Stanford University and completed the architecture program at Harvard. His firm remained widely recognized for award-winning design and for advancing contextual modernism in American architecture.

Columbus, Indiana projects
• Mabel McDowell Adult Education Center (originally Mabel McDowell Elementary School), 2700 McKinley Avenue, 1960.

Honors
• Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture, 1958.
• More than 13 American Institute of Architects honors by 1964.

Work in Columbus