William Ingemann papers

William Ingemann was born in St. Paul in 1897 and educated at the University of Minnesota (1915-1922) and the American Academy in Rome. He served in World War I as an ambulance driver and as an engineer for Belgian reconstruction carried out by the American Red Cross. Early in his career as an architect in New York City, he was associated with Cass Gilbert (1921-1922) and Electus Litchfield (1922-1926). In 1926 Ingemann opened an office in St. Paul. He married Dorothy Brink, also of St. Paul, in 1927, and her background as an artist and architect was employed as renderer in Ingemann's office from 1927 to 1936. Many of the finest renderings and sketches in the collection are by Ms. Ingemann but are unsigned. During World War II, Ingemann served as a major in the Army Air Corps and after the war was in partnership with St. Paul architect Milton Bergstedt until 1958. Ingemann maintained his own office until retiring in 1961. He moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico in 1965 and died there on February 15, 1980.

Ingemann's practice included hospitals, churches, residences, and public buildings. Equally important were his designs of college buildings at the University of Minnesota, Gustavus Adolphus College (St. Peter, Minnesota), Augsburg College (Minneapolis), Concordia College (Moorhead, Minnesota), and Hamline University (St. Paul).

Dorothy Brink was born about 1903 and raised in St. Paul. She was among the first women to graduate from the University of Minnesota School of Architecture, in 1925. The following year, she began working for William Ingemann as a draftsman and married him in 1927. Together, they designed the prestigious Lowell Inn (originally Sawyer Hotel) in Stillwater, Minnesota, in 1927 and spent their honeymoon there. The Ingemanns traveled extensively and wrote a book entitled Minor Architecture of Worcestershire, published in 1938. Dorothy retired with her husband from architectural practice in 1961. She died in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, on April 2, 1991.