William Bates III is, as many ICA&CA students and stalwarts know, a Fellow of the Institute, beloved occasional teacher, and constant, loyal guide and friend. Today he lives and works in Charleston, South Carolina, where he is a Professor of Architectural Drawing and Design at the American College of the Building Arts. ACBA is a national pedagogical pioneer, which received a 2008 Arthur Ross Award in Education; learn more at their Web site. They're lucky to have him in their faculty ranks.
As the Institute prepares for its June 2009 Rome Drawing and Painting Travel Program, William is once again very generously providing the Edward Vason Jones Scholarship. We thank him profusely. This initiative was one he first launched in 2002 and is made in a year when the Institute conceives and offers a drawing trip in Rome as a modern extension of one of the most essential components of a well-rounded classical design education-- squarely in place since the French and English first began such inspiring expeditions in the 18th century.
Jones was posthumously awarded the Arthur Ross Award in Architecture in its second year of existence in 1983. What was then Classical America alone, recognized this late, great neoclassical architect and member of the Georgia School of Classicism for a nearly 50-year career in and around Albany, Georgia. Perhaps best remembered today is his work at the White House and in creation of reception rooms in the U.S. State Department. Jones personified ideally the continuum of this classical tradition, which defines our core mission in architecture and its allied arts.
To herald the upcoming Jones Rome scholarship opportunity, I recently posed some questions to its patron and report below accordingly:
PG: I am curious to learn how you landed so auspiciously at Charleston's American College of the Building Arts?
WB: I met John Paul Huguley, founder of ACBA's institutional predecessor, the School of the Building Arts, at an Institute lecture in 2001 held at Warren and Wetmore's fabled New York Yacht Club. His ideas about fusing a liberal arts education and a trade focus paralleled my personal interests. Our conversation developed over the next four years and in 2005, I joined with an originating core of eight colleagues to found what evolved into ACBA. I developed the program for the drawing and drafting department, where I teach today. Helping to found a College along with so many incredible individuals from around the world has been the best kind of job. I have learned more as an educator than I ever did as a student.
Portico Detail of a recent house
PG: How did you become a Classicist? What is your training?
WB: My undergraduate degree is from Alabama's Auburn University – a Bachelors in Interior Design from their Architecture Department. It was a broad education, not classical per se but a rich, diverse, and duly provocative offering of all ideas from modern to antique. I was always intrigued with geometry and might have ended up a modernist had I not been thoroughly immersed in traditional form as a child. I briefly met Edward Vason Jones at the age of 10 and he sparked an interest in the local vernacular and its classical antecedents. It is of course a passion that still encourages me today. My ensuing Masters of Architecture degree is from University of Miami.
The bedroom of a fanciful Charleston gentleman
PG: How were you introduced to the ICA&CA?
WB: I came across The Classicist #1 from 1994 in what alas is the now long-gone Carousel Books in Atlanta. I could not believe my luck--just what I was looking for. I wrote Institute co-founder, Richard Cameron, and he invited me to a lecture at the University Club right afterwards in 1995. I accepted, arrived in New York, had lunch with Richard, and the rest is history-- my personal career path for which I am glad and grateful. In 2002 I was appointed as a Fellow of ICA—now of the fully merged entity-- and I see this periodic scholarship as one part of my central guiding duties on this front line of the overall volunteer contribution to the Institute’s full educational program.
PG: What was the advent of the Edward Vason Rome scholarships? Why did you chose this namesake and why Rome?
WB: Although Jones is most well known for his work at the State Department, his entire portfolio is a constant source of joy. He was able to produce designs that were creative classical solutions to contemporary needs and problems. And his broad knowledge and innovative incorporation of the precedents of Southern architecture form the 18th, and early 19th centuries made his work very compelling. The Edward Vason Jones Scholarship evolved as my way to insure that students of demonstrable skill who might not otherwise be able to afford the travel program could take due advantage and join the eager group that always characterizes ICA&CA travel programs no matter their destination or content. And yet those concentrating in rigorous daily drawing fit the bill best of all. I had been to Rome once as a child but had not yet studied there when I invented my tribute scholarship in 2002, celebrating the example of my lifelong design hero. I wanted others in the early stages of their careers to have the chance that I did not have while in school. I am glad at such uncertain times to sustain this relatively young yet vital 21st-century teaching tradition.
PG: We will report ahead the scholarship recipient and make certain that he or she understand the meaning of your generosity. Thanks come from one and all.
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To learn more about the Rome tour and other travel opportunities soon at hand, be sure to visit the Web site soon and often as its offerings are creative and constant.
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