Alfred Kastner

(b Thuringia, 1901; d Washington, DC, July 1975). American architect of German birth. He served briefly in the German Army in World War I before enrolling at the University of Hamburg, where he graduated in 1922. He worked in architects' offices in Austria, Germany and the Netherlands before moving to the USA in 1924, working then as a draughtsman in offices including those of Joseph Urban and the firm of Raymond Hood, Godley and Fouilhoux in New York. In 1929 he won first prize in a competition for the Ukrainian National Theatre at Khar'kov (now Kharkiv). In 1930 he became a partner of Oskar Stonorov in Philadelphia, winning second prize in a competition for the Palace of the Soviets, Moscow, with an Expressionist design. In 1932, in partnership with Stonorov and W. Pope Barney (1890-1968), Kastner participated in the design of the Carl Mackley Houses (1932), a housing project in Philadelphia that was an early example of International Style Modernism in the USA and one of the most advanced of the Public Works Administration projects of the early 1930s.

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