Background
Paul Davis was born in 1872 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
Paul Davis was born in 1872 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
After an early education at the William Penn Charter School from which he was graduated at the age of nineteen, the youth studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, and having received his B. S. degree in 1884, entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris for supplementary study.
Shortly after returning to the United States, Mr. Davis began independent practice in Philadelphia in 1900 and for five years maintained independent practice, later joined J. Edmund Dunlap and William Pope Barney in a partnership which was continued until Mr. Barney withdrew to establish his own office. During that period the firm specialized in designing bank buildings in Philadelphia, of which the most important were the Tenth National Bank, American Bank and Trust Company, the National Bank of Commerce, and the Cinnamanson Bank and Trust Company building.
In later years (1930-38) Mr. Davis continued in association with Mr. Dunlap. Their work included a number of public buildings of notable excellence, among which should be named the High and Junior High School at Camden! N. J., the Presbyterian Ministers Fund Life Insurance Building, Philadelphia; Cheltenham High School at Elkins Park, Pa., the First Church of Christ Scientist at Ardmore, Pa., and the Christian Science Church at Swarth- more, Pa., also buildings at the University of West Virginia at Morgantown.
A member since 1918 and former president of the Philadelphia Chapter, A.I.A Mr. Davis was elected to Institute Fellowship in 1926, and later served four years on the national Board of Directors. He was also a member of the Beaux Arts Society of Architects, and various other professional and cultural organizations.