Norman F. Carver, Jr.
American; Male; born 1928, died 2004
Mlive Obituary:
ALAMAZOO, MI -- An architect with both international reach and local fame in Kalamazoo died Friday.
Norman Carver Jr. spent his half of his century-long career embarking on adventures. He visited ancient ruins in Cambodia and hiked the hills of Italy, Japan and Mexico. At the same time, he was also gaining fame in the Kalamazoo arts community.
Carver died Friday, Nov. 16, at the age of 90. The photographer and architect was born in Kalamazoo and later became a world traveler and authored nearly 10 books documenting his travels.
His interest in architecture began at an early age, according to a Kalamazoo Gazette article published Aug. 24, 2003. He recalled his father winning a camera at a golf outing and gifting it to him. In the 1940s, Carver spent his summers working for an architect, who convinced him to attend Yale University and study architecture.
During his time at Yale, Carver joined the Army. He was stationed in Kyoto, Japan, where he spent two and half years studying and photographing Japanese architecture.
Before graduating from Yale in 1953, Carver married his wife, Joan. With a Fulbright Scholarship paying their way, the couple boarded a boat for Japan where Carver spent another year studying.
"We got married, got on a boat and went to Japan," Carver said in the Kalamazoo Gazette article. "So the Fulbright was our honeymoon. So that was wonderful."
The couple was married 60 years, Joan said in an interview with MLive.
"I thought I'd be prepared," she said about her husband's passing after a few months on Hospice Care. "You find you're never prepared.
"Norm was a man of all trades and had been to practically every place in the world."
The pair spent the early years of their marriage in Japan, Joan said. Remembering back to the frequent travels and carefree lifestyle, she reflected on the train rides to small villages and walking miles to reach remote places.
"We'd get up in the morning and say, 'Where do we want to go today?'" Joan said.
Their son was born in Tokyo and later the traveling continued once they brought their daughter into the world.
"I can remember sitting at the bottom of a tree in Spain while he was photographing practically all day," Joan said.
Carver and his wife would stay up into the morning hours composing his books, she said. Sitting among the book's pages spread on their living room floor, Joan said the couple would go back and forth about which photos to include and which ones to toss.
The next chapter in his life was working in Detroit under world-renowned architect Minoru Yamasaki, who served as lead architect during construction of the original World Trade Center towers in New York City.
Carver's study of architecture and photography around the world took him to Italian hill towns, Japanese folk houses, Iberian villages, Greek islands, North African villages and Mexican and Mayan silent cities.
But his career ultimately led Carver and his wife back to Kalamazoo, where he built his first home in 1957.
Over the next 45 years, he would build over 100 houses in Kalamazoo and other Michigan cities. His creative genius, inspired by the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, also touched sites in Virginia, Ohio, New York, New Jersey and California.
Locally, Carver also designed the Western Michigan University housing complex near Stadium Drive and Howard Street.
Carver spent his last days surrounded by his work, Joan said. And despite the efforts of family and medical staff telling him to stop, his drive to finish another book was too much.
Carver would send his wife and children back and forth in search of photographs for his latest project.
"The people who knew Norm, they think he's just done everything you could possibly do," Joan said. "It just wasn't a long enough life."
Kalamazoo architect Nelson Nave said Carver was one of Frank Lloyd Wright's "disciples."
Nave, 70, said in an interview with MLive that he first met Carver in the late 1970s when the pair were members of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
Carver's designs borrowed from both Wright and the modern Japanese architecture he saw overseas, Nave said.
That modern design, including flat roofs and stone floors, was much different than what other houses looked like in Kalamazoo. But despite the difference in taste, Carver's designs became popular in the arts community and among the city's most influential citizens, he said.
Nave remembered stopping into Carver's gallery on the Kalamazoo Mall during Art Hops, where both Carver's work and his dry humor were often on display.
Carver would joke with Nave that he was the only architect allowed to work on his houses, he said. This came true about 15 years ago when Nave was "lucky enough" to restore an original Carver home on Gull Lake built in 1972, Nave said.
Carver's work is not as well known with the younger generations of architects, Nave said. He stressed the importance of his name and legacy living on in Kalamazoo.
"Somebody's got to teach him to the kids," Nave said.
During his life, Carver spent time as a lecturer and instructor at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Harvard, Princeton and many other universities.
The Carver name might also be familiar to patrons of Kalamazoo's Civic Theatre. Established by his parents, Louise and Norman Carver Sr., the theater was run by his brother, James, from 1974 to 1997. The architect of the family made his own contribution to the Civic by designing the Carver Center and Suzanne D. Parish Theatre.
His nephew, Stephen Carver, is the theater's current executive director.
Carver-designed homes in the area include 19 in Twelve Oaks development in Oshtemo Township and six more in Parkwyn Village, a Kalamazoo neighborhood designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the 1940s. There are another 25 Carver homes that can be found outside of the Kalamazoo area, along the Lake Michigan shoreline.
