Donald Edward Evelyn Gibson [also known as Donald Gibson, Sir Donald Gibson and D.E.E. Gibson] was born in Northenden, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on 11 October 1908. His father, Arnold Hartley Gibson (1878-1959), was professor of engineering at the University of Manchester. He studied at Manchester School of Architecture and at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was an RIBA Howard Collis Student in 1927 and an RIBA Recognised Schools Bronze Medallist in 1929. He qualified as an architect in 1932 and was elected an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA) in 1933.
In 1938, at the age of 29, he was appointed Coventry City Architect. During World War Two and in the immediate post-war years he was engaged in preparing a redevelopment scheme for war-ravaged Coventry. However, he was frustrated by obstructions to the city's architectural progress and resigned his post, having accepted the appointment of County Architect for Nottinghamshire. By 1958, when he left Nottingham to take up the position of Architect to the War Department, he had established a reputation as the leading local-authority architect.
In 1962 he was knighted and that year was appointed director-general of research and development at the Ministry of Public Building and Works. Five years later, in 1967, he became controller-general in the Ministry. In 1964-65 he was President of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He retired in 1969 and died in Gwynedd Wales on 22 December 1991.
Gibson, Donald E. Plan for the new Coventry : from disorder and destruction, order and design. Watford : Courtesy of the Architect and Building News, 1941
Harwood, Elain. Mid-Century Britain: Modern Architecture 1938-1963. London: Batsford, 2021
Wulff, Victor L. 'The replanning of Coventry'.[Discusses 1947 plan for the city of Coventry]. American Institute of Architects Journal vol. 31, January 1959 pp. 30-33
'Biographical notes on Donald Gibson’. Architects' Journal 20 January 1955 p. 77
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‘Inaugural address of the president, Sir Donald Gibson, given at the RIBA on 3 Nov. 1964’. RIBA Journal December 1964 pp. 498-505
‘Interview of the month: Sir Donald Gibson’ Official Architecture & Planning October 1963 p. 1009
‘Official architects: 4. Donald Gibson of Coventry’. Building April 1953 pp. 139-141
'Sir Donald Gibson’. RIBA Journal vo. 99, no. 9, September 1992 pp. 68-69