Nicholas Dick Davis, FAIA, Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Auburn University, died on April 25, 2023, at Southern Tennessee Medical Center, at age 92. He was born in Memphis on June 9, 1930, to writers Reuben and Helen Dick Davis, and reared in the Mississippi Delta, a landscape that shaped his artistic sensibility as he grew up hunting and fishing there. He earned a BA and a BS in architecture from Rice University, where he was president of the student chapter of the American Institute of Architects, was awarded the Alpha Rho Chi medal, and also won the 1953 William Ward Watkin Traveling Fellowship to Europe. Following his military service in the US Army Corps of Engineers, he earned an MFA in Architecture from Princeton University. Returning to Jackson, Mississippi, he met and married Ina Carolyn Paine in 1960 and settled into architecture practice with Jay T. Liddle. In 1963, he was invited to Auburn University for a one-year appointment and stayed until his retirement in 1995, teaching design and architectural history. Among other teaching awards, he was named Alumni Professor in 1982. His many built designs include residences, a college library, the restored Auburn University Chapel, the Hargis Maffett Museum near Birmingham, and the Loachapoka United Methodist Church, which won a national AIA design award and was featured on the cover of the journal Faith and Form. In 2000 he became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. His work reflected his lifelong study of Frank Lloyd Wright and his fascination with organic forms and geometric structures. In retirement, he traveled to such places as Egypt, Ireland, Normandy, and Wales. With the help of Carolyn, he self-published a limited-edition book of his drawings and essays, Delta Oxbow. Readers of local Auburn media will recall his fierce advocacy for the arts and for the university’s intellectual mission. In 2018, following a stroke, he and Carolyn moved to the Sewanee area to be near their daughter and her family. Mr. Davis was predeceased by his parents and by his sister, Louvica. Survivors include his wife Carolyn, daughter Jennifer Michael (Jim Pappas), all of Sewanee; son Nathan (Sylvia), of New York City; grandsons Jamie Pappas of Sewanee and Llewelyn Davis of New York; many loving friends, and many former students who continue to stay in contact and to honor his legacy. He was a lifelong Methodist and a member of Auburn United Methodist Church for almost 60 years. The family plans a memorial service at a later date. In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to the Mississippi chapter of the Nature Conservancy. The family is grateful to the staff members at Signature HealthCare of Monteagle and Southern Tennessee Medical Center for their care and compassion. Arrangements by Moore-Cortner Funeral Home, 300 First Ave NW, Winchester, TN 37398, (931)-967-2222.
