Robert Mills

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.