Walter A. Netsch, Jr.
Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill Director of Design for the Air Force Academy
Walter Netsch had primary responsibility for the architectural design of the Air Force Academy including the cadet chapel. He was born in Chicago in 1920 and received a bachelor of architecture degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1943. He served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II, then returned to Chicago and worked with the Morgan Yost firm.
He joined Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill in San Francisco in 1947, designed air bases in Japan and Okinawa during the Korean War, and moved to the firm’s Chicago office in 1954, shortly before the beginning of the competition for design of the Air ForceAcademy. His other important designs include the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, theInland Steel Building in Chicago, the Regenstein Libraries at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, and the East Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.