Walter Koellein Vivrett papers

Walter Koellein Vivrett was a member of the faculty of the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota for 30 years, and at the time of his death, he was director of Graduate Studies. During World War II, he served with the Army Corp of Engineers. Upon his return, he received a B.S. in Architecture from the University of Illinois in 1947, and went on to Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his Masters degree. He taught for one year at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, before coming to Minnesota in 1949.

Vivrett was a well-known authority on housing of the aged and served on a number of committees studying this problem. He was director of a three-year research project on housing and care facilities for the aging financed by the Hill Foundation. He served as an advisor on housing for the elderly to the FHA. He was a member of the advisory committee on housing for the elderly for the Housing and Home Finance Agency. He served as Technical Director for the White House Conference on Aging, and was a member of the Senior Services Housing and Living Arrangements Committee, Community Health and Welfare Council, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Vivrett was one of the founding members of Minnesota Experimental City (MXC), and served as its director during its early years (1965-1970). He continued to do research on MXC until his death. MXC was a new town project that was to be located in central Minnesota, south of Grand Rapids. MXC was to be a self-contained entity, serving as a living laboratory for the most advanced ideas in urban planning. For various reasons this project never became a reality, and was finally abandoned in the mid-1970s.

In 1978, Professor Vivrett was awarded a special citation for his contributions to architectural education by the Minnesota Society AIA. He served on many committees including: the American Institute of Architects, the National Architectural Accrediting Board, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture, the American Institute of Planners, and the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.

After a nine-year battle with Parkinson's disease, Vivrett died in Nashville Tennessee in 1979 at the age of 63.