John Preston Shaw passed away on June 9, 2016 in Issaquah, Washington. Shaw had a long and prestigious career as an architectural educator and architect. He was born July 7, 1928 in Abilene, Texas, and graduated with a degree in architecture from the University of Texas in 1950. The next four years he spent in the Air Force, first in North Dakota and Nebraska, designing demountable housing for the Strategic Air Command directly under the famous Cold Warrior Curtis LeMay. In 1953-54 Shaw was sent to Europe: first, by accident, to Paris; later, once the Air Force learned of their mistake, to Wiesbaden, West Germany. In 1955 Shaw returned to Austin where he worked in the office of Fehr and Granger (1955-1956) and taught at the University of Texas in the architecture department (1955-1958). It was here Shaw met Bernhard Hoesli, Colin Rowe, Lee Hodgden, Werner Seligmann, and John Hejduk, and formed the group of educators known as the Texas Rangers, many of whom (Hodgden, Rowe, Seligman, and Shaw) later taught at Cornell. Shaw had the distinction of being the only Texas Ranger actually from Texas. This group’s contribution to architecture education in the United States is the topic of Alex Caragonne’s 1995 The Texas Rangers: Notes from an Architectural Underground.

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