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Paul Gilger

American architect

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ7150899
Source-derived summary

Paul Douglass Gilger (born October 13, 1954 in Mansfield, Ohio) is an architect, set designer, playwright and cartographer.

Playwrighting

Gilger conceived the 2003 off-Broadway Jerry Herman musical revue Showtune.

Architecture

In 1991, Gilger was the project designer for the Industrial Light and Magic Film Studio in San Rafael, California for filmmaker George Lucas (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) and in 1989, he helped prepare conceptual designs for the Disney/MGM Film Studios in Tokyo, Japan.

Gilger was a Senior Project Designer with Hedgpeth Architects in Santa Rosa, California, for over 30 years.

Set design

With Nomad Productions Scenic Studios in San Francisco, Gilger worked on concert touring sets for Madonna (1985 Like a Virgin Tour), Kenny Loggins, Crosby Stills & Nash, Carlos Santana, Alabama, Dio, and Petra, stage sets for Whoopi Goldberg and Anthony Newley (the 1983 musical Chaplin), set pieces for the Super Bowl broadcast, and numerous sets for television. He has designed numerous stage sets for theatre companies in Ohio and California.

Lincoln Highway

Gilger is the chair of the Lincoln Highway Association National Mapping Committee. In 2012, Gilger completed the cartography of the entire Lincoln Highway, creating the online Official Map of the Lincoln Highway, a 20-year project involving research by 25 members of the committee. Additionally, Gilger serves as a tour guide for the Association.

In popular culture

Gilger's name is used for one of the characters in the popular Japanese manga series Bleach created by Tite Kubo, who named most of the Espada characters after architects.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Paul Gilger” is american architect. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Paul, Gilger and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1954, 2003, 1991, 1989—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1954-10-13. For this dossier, Paul, Gilger and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american architect” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7150899. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1954, 2003, 1991 and 1989.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Paul Gilger”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Paul Gilger primary sources, Paul Gilger archive and Paul research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Paul Gilger”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Paul Gilger” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.