Inductees in Architects & Designers

James Burrill Angell (1829-1916)
Inducted in 2008

James Burrill Angell had a remarkably diverse career-- Brown University graduate, professor of languages, newspaper editor, university president, and diplomat. He is best known as the longest-serving president of the University of Michigan where he aspired to provide an 'uncommon education for the common man.'

Born on January 7, 1829, in Scituate, Rhode Island, Angell was the eldest of eight
children of Amy and Andrew Angell, and a member of an old-line Rhode Island family that traced its lineage to Thomas Angell who came to Providence with Roger Williams.

Although reared on an outlying farm, Angell had an excellent early education including a
year at the University Grammar School under the instruction of Henry Frieze, a teacher who would spend many years as professor and interim president of the University of Michigan. Read more >
Ade Bethune (1914-2002)
Inducted in 1990

Bethune, Ade, 1914-2002

Ms. Bethune of Newport, whose expertise in liturgical architecture and iconography is world-renowned, led her to a distinguished career as a much sought-after consultant for church planning. She held special concern for less fortunate parishes, as well as community efforts to include low-income housing, solar heating, and energy efficiency. A recipient of six Honarary Degrees and several prestigious awards and honors, she is Art Director of the Terra Santa Guild and a former Editor of Sacred Signs and The Catholic Art Quarterly. Read more >
James C. Bucklin (1801-1890)
Inducted in 2012

Records say that architect James C. Bucklin was a native of Pawtucket, but in view of his family's Rehoboth origins, the place of his birth on July 26, 1801, was probably on the east side of the Blackstone, an area not acquired by Rhode Island until 1862. His parents were James and Lorania (Pearce) Bucklin. When his father died only a year and a half after his birth, James's widowed mother moved with him to Providence, where he would live for the remainder of his long life. Read more >
Barnaby M. Evans
Inducted in 2011

Barnaby Evans is the creator, founder, and executive artistic director of WaterFire Providence. He is an artist who works in a multitude of mediums including site-specific sculpture installations, photograph, film, garden design, architectural projects, writing and conceptual works. His original training was in the sciences, but he has been working exclusively as an artist for more than twenty-five years.

Evans, a resident of Providence, is best known for WaterFire, a sculpture which he installed on the three rivers of Downtown Providence that draws over one million visitors to the city each year. Read more >
J. Malcolm Grear (1931-)
Inducted in 2010

Malcolm Grear is a renaissance man in the most complete sense of the word: he understands the human values involved with the arts, and has educated himself to appreciate and deliver beauty in our daily lives. He also has taken upon himself to educate others about good design as well.

Although Malcolm’s main discipline is graphic design, he has influenced the human-made environment in many other ways. He is fond of saying, at this stage of his highly successful career, that “there is practically no one in the U. Read more >
John Holden Greene (1777-1850)
Inducted in 2001

Greene, John Holden, 1777-1850

John Holden Greene was a carpenter-architect who moved from his native Warwick to Providence in 1794 and designed his first major Providence structure, the Sullivan Dorr House, in 1809. Embracing the Neo-classical style known as Federal architecture, many of his homes were distinguished by roof and portico balustrading. Greene designed a sizeable portion of Providence’s finest early 19th century homes and public buildings. Those that survive in addition to the Dorr House, include the Cathedral of St. Read more >
Peter Harrison (1716-1775)
Inducted in 1998

Harrison, Peter, 1716-1775

Peter Harrison was born in Yorkshire, England to Quaker parents and came to Newport in 1738 as a cabin boy on a merchant vessel. Upon arrival he worked with his brother, Joseph, in both agriculture and trade, dealing in wines, rum, molasses and mahogany under the auspices of Newport merchant John Banister. On June 6, 1746, he married Elizabeth Pelham, Banister’s youngest sister-in-law and a descendant of Benedict Arnold, first governor under the Rhode Island charter of 1663. The couple took up residence on a farm on Brenton’s Cove. Read more >
Raymond Hood (1881-1934)
Inducted in 1988

Hood, Raymond M. (Raymond Mathewson), 1881-1934

Mr. Hood was a pioneer architect in American modern architecture. Born in Pawtucket, he attended Brown University before enrolling at MIT, later becoming internationally recognized for his skyscraper designs. Read more >
Richard Morris Hunt (1827-1895)
Inducted in 2006

Hunt, Richard Morris, 1827-1895

Richard Morris Hunt (1827-1895) was the noted American architect of such Newport Mansions as Marble House, The Breakers, Ochre Court, Belcourt Castle, and Griswold House, now the Newport Art Museum.

. Read more >
Eugene Lee
Inducted in 2007

“Nothing makes me happier than an impossible space and an impossible project,” says renowned theater set designer Eugene Lee.

When Lee designs a set, he will often reconfigure the theatre, repositioning exits, technical booths, even walls, to accommodate the play. His audiences frequently find themselves inside, on top of, or under sets that don’t stay put. Robert Brustein, founding director of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theatre once said that Lee has “the remarkable capacity to create an illusion of vast reaches out of circumscribed space. Read more >
George Champlin Mason, Sr. (1820-1894)
Inducted in 2006

Mason, George C. (George Champlin), 1820-1894

George Champlin Mason, Sr. was a noted Newport architect, real estate developer, editor of the Newport Mercury, prolific historian of Newport, and a founder of the Newport Historical Society. Among his significant architectural designs are Chepstow, the 1860-61 Italianate villa just off Bellevue Avenue, Newpor; Eisenhower House, at 1 Lincoln Drive at Ford Adams State Park, used during the former president's administration as his summer residence. Read more >
Charles F. McKim (1847-1909)
Inducted in 2007

McKim, Charles Follen, 1847-1909

Charles F. McKim, a native of Pennsylvania, was the son of an abolitionist father and a Quaker mother. The radical politics of his parents had little impact on McKim, who became a cosmopolitan architect who traveled in the company of wealthy and prominent businessmen and politicians.

After study at Harvard, McKim enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and traveled throughout Europe. Read more >
Friedrich St. Florian, AIA
Inducted in 2005

"War must not be glorified, but war must be remembered." Friedrich St. Florian set out to do just that. His design of the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D. Read more >
Marjorie Joy Vogel (1930-2007)
Inducted in 2008

Born in Dayton, Ohio on October 31, 1930, the daughter of Theodore and Margaret (Burke) Suman, Marjorie received her B.Sc. in Business/Psychology at Kentucky’s Bowling Green University. Her early years gave little indication that she would become the most prolific artist ever of Rhode Island’s architectural, or built, landscape. Read more >
William D. Warner, FAIA (1929-2012)
Inducted in 2004

Warren D. Warner, 1929-2012, was a former Rhode Island School of Design instructor and the architect credited with redesigning Providence and revitalizing the waterfront. Warner and fellow RISD professor Friedrich St. Florian used a restaurant table napkin to sketch their vision for a re-imagined downtown Providence waterfront. Read more >
Russell Warren (1783-1860)
Inducted in 2001

Russell Warren, 1783-1860, was a Tiverton-born carpenter who became one of Rhode Island's leading architects. The first phase of his career (1800-1823) was marked by residence in Bristol where he designed mansions for that town's prosperous merchants. His move to Providence in 1826 allowed him to design (with James C. Bucklin) such important structures as the Providence Arcade (1827-29) and the Westminster Congregational Church (1828-29). Read more >
Stanford White (1853-1906)
Inducted in 2005

Stanford White (1853-1906) found in Rhode Island the perfect social and natural setting for his artistic talents. In Stanford White, Rhode Island found the architectural genius that perfectly captured the spirit of its "Gilded Age". While one without the other would have been noteworthy, the combination truly exemplified one of the greatest epochs in American architecture.

At the age of nineteen, Stanford White began an apprenticeship in the Boston office of Henry H. Read more >