Robert Mills (architect)

Robert Mills ( born August 12, 1781 Charleston, South Carolina, † March 3, 1855 in Washington, DC ) was an American architect and cartographer, among other things, the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. designed.

He is sometimes referred to as the first American-born, the architect was, this probably applies more for Charles Bulfinch.

Mills was in Charleston, South Carolina, a student of coming from Ireland architect James Hoban, who later became the White House planner of the U.S. president.

In 1802 he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he became a pupil and collaborator of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, makes itself soon but even a name. In Philadelphia, he designed the Washington Hall, which Baptist Church in Samson Street, the " Octagon Unitarian Church " and was the drafting of the " Upper Ferry Bridge " involved. He also designed the Burlington County Prison in the U.S. state of New Jersey.

After moving to Baltimore, Maryland, he was the designer of the local " St. John 's Episcopal Church ", the " Maryland House of Industry" and " Maryland Club" and built in the years that followed, a number of buildings in South Carolina, Richmond (Virginia) and Washington, DC. 1825 he published an atlas of South Carolina.

In 1836 he won the tender for the design of the Washington Monument, his best known work. Then he designed the building in which the U.S. Treasury Department was housed and other government buildings in Washington, DC; in South Carolina the courthouse in at least 18 counties; public building in Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, some private houses as well as portions of the " Landford Canals " in Lancaster County on Catabwa River.

Mills was one of the first to mitberücksichtigte also fire protection measures in its planning. When a fire in Kingstree, South Carolina the first floor of the courthouse largely destroyed, the archive of the district on the ground floor remained so spared.