William Robert Ware (May 27, 1832 – June 9, 1915), born in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

into a family of the Unitarian clergy, was an American architect, author, and founder of two important American architectural schools. He received his own professional education at

Milton Academy Milton Academy (also known as Milton) is a highly selective, coeducational, independent preparatory, boarding and day school in Milton, Massachusetts consisting of a grade 9–12 Upper School and a grade K–8 Lower School. Boarding is offered ...

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

and Harvard's

Lawrence Scientific School The Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) is the engineering school within Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, offering degrees in engineering and applied sciences to graduate students admitted ...

. In 1859, he began working for

Richard Morris Hunt Richard Morris Hunt (October 31, 1827 – July 31, 1895) was an American architect of the nineteenth century and an eminent figure in the history of American architecture. He helped shape New York City with his designs for the 1902 entrance fa� ...

, the founder of the first American architectural school, the

AIA AIA or A.I.A. or Aia may refer to: Aia * Aia, a small town in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, Spain * Aia, current Kutaisi, ancient capital of Colchis * Aia, another name for Aea (Malis), an ancient town in Greece * ''Aia'', the collected ed ...

, and the first American to graduate from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Soon afterward Ware formed a partnership with the civil engineer Edward S. Philbrick, Philbrick and Ware, and they designed the

Swedenborgian The New Church (or Swedenborgianism) is any of several historically related Christian denominations that developed as a new religious group, influenced by the writings of scientist and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). Swedenborgian or ...

High Street Church in

Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Boston, Brighton, A ...

. In 1864, Ware partnered with fellow Harvard graduate

Henry Van Brunt Henry Van Brunt FAIA (September 5, 1832 – April 8, 1903) was a 19th-century American architect and architectural writer. Life and work Van Brunt was born in Boston in 1832 to Gershom Jacques Van Brunt and Elizabeth Price Bradlee. Van Brunt ...

to form Ware & Van Brunt. Their Boston-area designs include Harvard's

Memorial A memorial is an object or place which serves as a focus for the memory or the commemoration of something, usually an influential, deceased person or a historical, tragic event. Popular forms of memorials include landmark objects or works of a ...

and Weld Halls, the

Episcopal Divinity School The Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) is a theological school in New York City that trains students for service with the Episcopal Church. It is affiliated with the Union Theological Seminary. Students who enroll in the EDS at Union Anglican st ...

campus in

, the

Providence Athenaeum The Providence Athenaeum is an independent, member-supported subscription library in the College Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island. The building is open to the public, but only members can check out items from the collection. The ...

in Providence, Rhode Island, the Walter Hunnewell house (1875) at the Hunnewell estate in Wellesley (then West Needham), and the

Ether Monument The Ether Monument, also known as The Good Samaritan, is a statue and fountain near the northwest corner of Boston's Public Garden, near the intersection of Arlington Street and Marlborough Street. It commemorates the use of ether in anesthesi ...

at the

Boston Public Garden The Public Garden, also known as Boston Public Garden, is a large park in the Downtown Boston, heart of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to Boston Common. It is a part of the Emerald Necklace system of parks, and is bounded by Charles Street (Bosto ...

. In 1865, Ware became the first professor of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. Architect

Joseph Lyman Silsbee Joseph Lyman Silsbee (November 25, 1848 – January 31, 1913) was a significant American architect during the 19th and 20th centuries. He was well known for his facility of drawing and gift for designing buildings in a variety of styles. His most ...

apprenticed under Ware and Van Brunt after graduating MIT in 1869. In 1881 Ware and Van Brunt amicably dissolved their partnership, and Ware moved to New York City to found the

School of Architecture This is a list of architecture schools at colleges and universities around the world. An architecture school (also known as a school of architecture or college of architecture), is an institution specializing in architectural education. Africa ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, which began as the Architecture Department in the

Columbia School of Mines The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (popularly known as SEAS or Columbia Engineering; previously known as Columbia School of Mines) is the engineering and applied science school of Columbia University. It was founded as th ...

. He retired in 1903 in poor health. Ware also dabbled briefly in

voting systems An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections ma ...

and used the idea of the

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

to devise what is now called, in the U.S.,

instant-runoff voting Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of ranked preferential voting method. It uses a majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referred to as ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the Un ...

, around 1870, used in several English speaking countries.

Publications

The American Vignola
(1904)
The Study of Architectural Drawing in the School of Architecture
(1896)
Modern Perspective: A Treatise Upon the Principles and Practice of Plane and Cylindrical Perspective
(1882)

References

External links

at dcMemorials.com
William R. Ware papers
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ware, William Robert Milton Academy alumni 19th-century American architects Architects from Boston Architects from Cambridge, Massachusetts 1832 births 1915 deaths Columbia University faculty Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni MIT School of Architecture and Planning faculty Writers from Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard College alumni