George Johannes

After earning his Master of Architecture degree from WashU in 1973, Johannes had the good fortune of being hired by one of the top design firms in St. Louis, Hoffman/Saur & Associates. Over the next three years, he sought and received a very broad range of experience from architectural design, construction documents, specification writing, planning, programming, and construction administration.

In 1976, Johannes was recruited to The Christner Partnership, Inc. where the diversity of experience continued. He discovered that the richness of the full and broad process of architecture held great appeal for him. Master planning, marketing, contract negotiation, and management were added to his experiences. In 1980 Johannes was named managing partner of the firm by Ted Christner. Over the next ten years under Johannes’ leadership and firm organizational design, the firm grew from 19 to 70 individuals including 35 architects. Projects over that period ranged from $50,000 to $40 million. This success was achieved through recruiting professionals who understood and enjoyed the breadth and depth of the profession, had a strong work ethic, and, being treated well by the firm, showed great loyalty and team effort on behalf of the firm’s success.

In the early 1990s, Johannes, with partner Tom Cohen, founded Johannes/Cohen Collaborative, Inc. Continuing an emphasis on the diversity of project types and professional roles, the firm grew to a staff of 11, designing new homes, medical facilities, restaurants, and many large historic tax credit conversions of historic St. Louis warehouses and factories.

Johannes’ recent practice has been involved primarily in the design of homes and serving as researcher and expert witness in defending against anti-abortion TRAP laws, which attempt to misuse building codes to shut down women’s clinics. One of his cases was upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court Whole Women’s Health vs. Hellerstedt, which over-turned such laws in Texas and seventeen other states.

Johannes has been sharing this diverse and satisfying experience with graduate candidates at WashU since 1994, teaching Professional Practice in the architecture and landscape architecture programs.

He lives on six acres in Illinois with Sally Burgess, past-executive director of the Hope Clinic for Women and current Illinois Sierra Club down-state organizing manager, plus two goats, two chickens, one duck, three dogs, and 0 bees.