BACK TO THE FUTURE: The artwork on the cover of the College of Architecture's 2004 faculty research symposium program offered a glimpse into the future as imagined in 1930 by architecture professor Gilbert Allan Geist (1880-1937). The drawings are part of a series of futurescapes created by Geist for the 1930 edition of “Longhorn,” the yearbook published by the senior class of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University). Geist taught painting, drawing and architecture at Texas A&M from 1910 to 1933. The primary record of his artistry can be found in the yearbooks published during his tenure. After retiring from Texas A&M, he moved to Philadelphia and worked as an architect for the federal government. He died in Philadelphia in 1937 at the age of only 53, and was buried in Muncy, Pennsylvania. To date, little of his artwork has emerged, but the excellent illustrations and drawings found in the A&M annuals indicate that he was an artist of great skill. A generation of Texas A&M architecture students received their first artistic training under Geist. Texas’ first formal architecture program was established at Texas A&M almost 100 years ago, on Sept. 1, 1905.

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