Ralph D. Anderson (October 21, 1924 – October 24, 2010) was an American architect from Seattle, Washington. He was a founder of Ralph Anderson and Partners, later Anderson Koch Smith. Although much of his work is modernist, he is also strongly associated with preservationism. He was an early and significant contributor (including as an investor) to the restoration of Seattle's Pioneer Square neighborhood, and also participated in restoration projects along First Avenue in the Pike Place Market Historical District in the 1970s. Early life and career Anderson was born in Seattle in 1924, the second of three sons. He was raised in the Magnolia neighborhood of the city and attended Queen Anne High School; for a time he was enlisted with the Army Air Corps. Anderson went on to graduate from the University of Washington Architecture School in his native Seattle in 1951 and received his Washington State architectural license in 1954. He worked several years for architect Paul H. Kirk before opening his own practice. His early work, including his own first home at Hidden Lake, constituted what he later called his "modernist glass-box phase". Having discovered how difficult it was to heat such a house he moved on to what he called a "Northwest design style. "I tried to use a lot of wood, and I tried to work with the contours, textures and vegetation of the Northwest, the wooded environment. Quite often I would have big, hovering roofs that would open up to the view." The style was also characterized by "broad windows", "exposed framing", "an emphasis on verticality" and often "a formal T-shape plan." Many of these houses were set to take advantage of views of water or mountains. He styled himself "the poor man's Roland Terry." After about a decade of building houses mainly in the Eastside Seattle suburbs of Mercer Island and Bellevue, Anderson opened an office at 108 S. Jackson in Pioneer Square, then known as Skid Road. It was a derelict neighborhood, and there was little concern for the mostly turn-of-the century buildings: people bought and sold land considering the old buildings relatively incidental. Along with Richard White, later of Foster/White Gallery, Anderson was among the first to see the potential of the neighborhood. He mortgaged his house to buy the Union Trust Building from Sam Israel and moved his office there (this may have been the only building Israel ever sold).