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A . G . Odell Jr ., the architect of the 1952 structure was a Concord , N . C . native . He came to Charlotte in 1939 and set up a one-man architectural office after training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and Duke and Cornell Universities .
According to Charlotte historian Dan Morrill , Odell had nothing but disdain for the architecture he observed when he arrived in Charlotte in the late 1930s . “ There was nothing here ,” said Odell , “ that illustrated the honesty of stone as stone , steel as steel , glass as glass . Everybody was still wallowing in the Colonial heritage .” It was the Charlotte Coliseum that gave Odell international fame . At the time , it was the largest unsupported dome in the world .