U.S.A. - Southern U.S. Architecture, Individual Architects, Designers, & Planners, U.S.A. - 19th Century Architecture, U.S.A. - Colonial & Federal Architecture, U.S.A. - General & Miscellaneous Architecture, Architects - Biography

Robert Mills: America's First Architect

Name: Robert Mills: America's First Architect
Author: John M. Bryan
ISBN: 9781568982960

by John M. Bryan

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Overview

"The first architect trained in America, Robert Mills (1781-1855) is best known as the designer of many iconic buildings in our nation's capital: the Washington Monument, the Department of Treasury Headquarters, the Patent Office Building (now National Portrait Gallery), and the Post Office Headquarters. Perhaps most interesting is the range of buildings and machines that Mills designed - from monuments and local courthouses, to prisons and churches, bridges and canals, to rotary piston engines and fireproof masonry vaults - all during a revolutionary era of building technology in America." "Mills's career spanned from 1810-1855. He was an apprentice of James Hoban, architect of the White House, and a colleague of Thomas Jefferson, designer of Monticello and the University of Virginia. He trained with Benjamin Henry Latrobe, designer of the Bank of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Waterworks, and was a professional adversary of Thomas Ustick Walter, creator of the dome of the U.S. Capitol." Robert Mills: America's First Architect is the first comprehensive monograph on this pivotal architect - beautifully illustrated with never-before-published watercolors and renderings and new color photography commissioned for the book. Author John Bryan, a best-selling historian and wonderful storyteller, weaves the history of Mills' architectural designs and engineering inventions together with the lives of the individuals who most influenced him, and chronicles the fascinating life of the founding father of American architecture.

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Editorials

Library Journal

Robert Mills, who claimed to be the first native-born American architect, is best known for his federal buildings and monuments, including the Department of Treasury building, the Patent Office building (now the National Portrait Gallery), and the Washington Monument. During a career that ranged from 1802 to 1855, he was associated with three icons of American architecture: James Hoban, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, and Thomas Jefferson. This comprehensive biography provides a readable text with 190 color and 100 black-and-white illustrations. It also captures Mills's other diverse accomplishments, including the first systematic mapping of any state (South Carolina) and compilation of the first directory of American lighthouses. This title is essential for all large architecture collections. For smaller collections already owning Rhodri Windsor Liscombe's Altogether American: Robert Mills Architect and Engineer (Oxford Univ., 1994. o.p.) or Robert Mills, Architect, edited by Bryan (1989. o.p.), this book's handsome format is more a justification for purchase than is additional content. Jay Schafer, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.