Prix de Paris

In Arnold Scheifer's restaurant in New York, George Frei is the waiter in the alpaca jacket who serves the veal stew, the fried potatoes and the draught beer. He served them last week with a broad and radiant grin. For years he saved all his tips so that his boy need never learn to balance a tray or memorize an order. George Frei Jr. wanted to be an architect. George Sr. sent him to the Harlem Vocational School, then to art classes in Cooper Union, then, while he worked as a draughtsman, to New York University. Last week a committee of Manhattan architects, including white-thatched Whitney Warren, Joseph Freedlander and Ely Kahn, awarded George Frei Jr. the two-and-a-half year Paris scholarship of the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects for a project to house a National Banking Board in a monumental group of buildings in Washington. No modernist, Architect Frei's buildings were designed in what he called "modified classicism," a style which seems to consist in substituting plain bands of stone for the traditional classic entablatures. Still Architect Frei believes architecture should be timely, said his winning design was "fun to work on because it bore a definite relation to the actual trend of affairs." Last year's winner, Architect Dick Granelli, is a good friend of George Frei Jr.

"Believe me," said he, "we certainly will have some good times together."

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