ABSTRACT
From 1925 to 1942, Julian Abele designed 39 buildings for “a new university for the Carolinas” on behalf of American Tobacco Co. and Southern Power Co. president and benefactor James Duke. The feat was more buildings than Ralph Adams Cram designed for Princeton or Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue designed for the University of Chicago or Robert Robinson Taylor designed for Tuskegee. Abele’s accomplishment was all the more remarkable because it was sight unseen, he never stepped on campus because of racial segregation. The most breath-taking building on campus is the Gothic Perpendicular style Duke University Chapel (1929) designed by Julian Abele.
