William Robert Ware born in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

 into a family of the Unitarian

Unitarianism

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

 clergy, was an American architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

, author, and founder of two important American architectural schools.

He received his own professional education at Milton Academy

Milton Academy

Milton Academy is a 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 starting in 9th grade...

, Harvard College

Harvard College

Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

 and Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School. In 1859 he began working for Richard Morris Hunt

Richard Morris Hunt

Richard Morris Hunt was an American architect of the nineteenth century and a preeminent figure in the history of American architecture...

, the founder of the first American architectural school and the AIA

American Institute of Architects

The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...

. Soon afterward Ware formed a partnership with the civil engineer Edward S. Philbrick, Philbrick and Ware, and they designed the Swedenborgian

Swedenborgian

A Swedenborgian is the doctrines, beliefs, and practices of the Church of the New Jerusalem, and is an adjective describing a person or an organization that understands the Bible through the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg....

 High Street Church in Brookline, Massachusetts

Brookline, Massachusetts

Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States, which borders on the cities of Boston and Newton. As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 58,732.-Etymology:...

.

In 1864 Ware partnered with fellow Harvard graduate Henry Van Brunt

Henry Van Brunt

Henry Van Brunt FAIA was a 19th-century American architect and architectural writer.-Life and work:Born in Boston in 1832, Van Brunt attended Boston Latin School, and graduated from Harvard College in 1854...

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

Memorial Hall (Harvard University)

Memorial Hall is an imposing brick building in High Victorian Gothic style, located on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts...

 and Weld Halls, the Episcopal Divinity School

Episcopal Divinity School

The Episcopal Divinity School is a seminary of the Episcopal Church based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Known throughout the Anglican Communion for prophetic teaching and action on issues of civil rights and social justice, its faculty and students have been directly involved in many of the social...

 campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, the Walter Hunnewell house (1875) at the Hunnewell estate in Wellesley (then West Needham), and the Ether Monument

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 Beacon Street....

 at the Boston Public Garden

Boston Public Garden

The Public Garden, also known as Boston Public Garden, is a large park located in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to Boston Common.-History:...

. In 1865, Ware became the first professor of architecture

MIT School of Architecture and Planning

The MIT School of Architecture and Planning is one of the five schools of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA...

 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

.

In 1881 Ware and Van Brunt amicably dissolved their partnership, and Ware moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 to found the School of Architecture

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation

The Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University in New York City, also known simply as GSAPP, is regarded as one of the most important and prestigious architecture schools in the world...

 at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, which began as the Architecture Department in the Columbia School of Mines. He retired in 1903 in poor health.

Ware also dabbled briefly in voting systems and used the idea of the single transferable vote

Single transferable vote

The single transferable vote is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through preferential voting. Under STV, an elector's vote is initially allocated to his or her most preferred candidate, and then, after candidates have been either elected or eliminated, any surplus or...

 to devise what is now called, in the U.S., instant-runoff voting

Instant-runoff voting

Instant-runoff voting , also known as preferential voting, the alternative vote and ranked choice voting, is a voting system used to elect one winner. Voters rank candidates in order of preference, and their ballots are counted as one vote for their first choice candidate. If a candidate secures a...

 (or, as it is better known outside the U.S., the alternative vote), 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)

External links

• The Ether Monument at dcMemorials.com