Bolton, Preston

Preston Bolton earned his Bachelor of Architecture degree from Texas A&M in 1941. After serving in World War II in Europe and the Middle East and earning five Bronze Stars, he moved to Houston to begin a landmark career in architecture. In 1951, Bolton and Howard Barnstone began a 10-year collaboration, producing a series of modern, rectilinear, flat-roofed houses inspired by Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe that brought their firm, Bolton and Barnstone, to national attention. Bolton and Barnstone won 16 design awards from the Texas Society of Architects, AIA Houston, and Architectural Record magazine. Their work was widely published in other national and local magazines. A Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Honor of Llewelyn W. Pitts Award winner in 1971, he was named to Who’s Who in America in 1990 and honored in 1993 with the P.M. Bolton Recognition Day/Business Leadership in the Arts Award. In December 2008, AIA Houston honored him with three new acquisitions of contemporary silver serving pieces in his name to the AIA Houston Design Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He was named a member emeritus of the College of Architecture’s Dean’s Advisory Council, after serving on the council from 2002-08.