Thomas Smith Tait (1882 – 1954) was a prominent Scottish Modernist architect. He designed a number of buildings around the world in Art Deco and Streamline Moderne styles, notably the Scottish Office Buildings on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, and the pylons for Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Born in 1882 in Paisley, the son of a master stonemason, he was educated at the John Neilson Institution, following which he entered apprenticeship as an architect with Ja...
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Thomas Smith Tait (1882 – 1954) was a prominent Scottish Modernist architect. He designed a number of buildings around the world in Art Deco and Streamline Moderne styles, notably the Scottish Office Buildings on Calton Hill, Edinburgh, and the pylons for Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Born in 1882 in Paisley, the son of a master stonemason, he was educated at the John Neilson Institution, following which he entered apprenticeship as an architect with James Donald in Paisley. Tait went on to Glasgow School of Art where he studied under the Beaux Arts teacher Eugene Bourdon. He travelled extensively in Europe between 1904 and 1905, before settling in London where he joined the prestigious architectural practice of Sir John James Burnet.
In 1910 he married Constance Hardy, the daughter of a London stationmaster, and they set up home at 26 Holyoake Walk in Ealing. Together they had three sons; the eldest, Gordon, born in 1912, later became an architect himself, and worked with his father on the...
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