"Frank D. Welch FAIA, considered the dean of Texas architects, died last week in Dallas at the age of 90. His prominence in the architectural culture of the Southwest cannot be overstated, particularly in the way that his work married the vernacular with the contemporary, as well as his use of materials and his intimate understanding of landscape, light, and spirit of place.

Welch was born in 1927 in Paris, Texas, and raised in Sherman, developing an early curiosity about art, photography, and the world far beyond his own immediate surroundings. He pursued architecture at Texas A&M and received a Fulbright to travel to Paris in the early 1950s, where he intended to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts—but he devoted much of his time there instead to black and white street photography, with a new Leica 3C. His voracious interest in photography, art, movies, music, and literature continued throughout his life."