Ralph A. Vaughn

Ralph A. Vaughn (1907–2000) was an African-American academic, architect and film set designer. Born in Washington, D.C., he was an assistant professor at Howard University before moving to Los Angeles, California, where he designed many buildings, houses and a synagogue. He was also a film set designer. He was one of the first African-American architects in Los Angeles.

Early life Ralph Augustine Vaughn was born on April 24, 1907, in Washington, D.C. His father, Roscoe I. Vaughn, was a teacher and architect in Washington, D.C. He had three siblings.

Vaughn was educated at the Armstrong Technical High School, where his father taught, graduating in 1925. He attended Howard University, a historically black college, but took a year off and transferred to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in architecture in 1932. For example, he helped design the set of Kismet, a 1944 film starring Marlene Dietrich. He also helped design the sets of A Guy Named Joe in 1943, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo in 1944, The Last Time I Saw Paris in 1954. It has been described as one of his "best-known extant projects."

Vaughn was appointed to the Los Angeles Building and Safety Commission in 1953. He was a member of the Archaeological Institute of America, the National Society of Interior Decorators, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Smithsonian Institution. He was a founding member of the Society of American Registered Architects. After designing the new building for Temple Beth Am, a Conservative synagogue, in 1959, he received an award from them.

Vaughn designed the Schwab's Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard and the buildings of the San Marcos Golf Club in San Marcos, California. He restored the Watts Towers in the later 1970s.

Personal life and death Vaughn married Elizabeth Estelle Christmas Fry in 1935. She worked as a librarian. They had a son, Ronald Fry Vaughn.

Vaughn retired in Stockton, California, in 1998. He died two years later, on October 21, 2000.