"Through all ages men have found in architecture the permanent expression of the beauty of their character and of their spirit. The architect of today, so far as in his power lies, is expressing the beauty of his age. This beauty is the first measure of all architecture. It shall make our cities beloved; our colleges and schools inspiring; our homes charming and precious. Neither the complexities of modern demands nor the confusion of modern avenues of artistic expression should lead the architect away from the ceaseless search for the beauty that is possible of attainment in each of his buildings."

William Ward Watkin 

Introduction

William Ward Watkin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 21, 1886. His parents were Fred W. Watkin and Mary Hancock Watkin. Watkin grew up in Pennsylvania, the home state of his mother's family. He graduated from Danville High School in 1903 and entered the University of Pennsylvania, pursuing the study of architecture under Paul Phillipe Cret. Following his graduation as number one in his class in 1908, Watkin spent one year traveling in Europe, principally in England.

Introduction

Upon his return from Europe, Watkin joined the Boston office of Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson, then one of the most prominent architectural firms in the United States. At the time of Watkin's employment, 1909, Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson had received the commission to produce a campus plan and to design the initial buildings of the Rice Institute in Houston, Texas. Watkin worked on the development of both the campus plan and the building plan in the Boston office; when construction was to begin in the summer of 1910 Watkin was sent to Houston to serve as the firm's representative supervisor. As supervising architect he worked closely with Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett, President of the Rice Institute, and was offered a faculty appointment in Architectural Engineering at the Institute. Watkin became the first Chairman of the Rice Architecture Department, and began accepting independent commissions. He developed a thriving private practice in Houston and other Texas communities, designing buildings for educational institutions, commercial ventures, and residences. Watkin also wrote articles for journals primarily dealing with Houston, its growth and development, and the implications these held for the city's architecture.

Introduction

Watkin had numerous academic, personal, and professional affiliations. He was a member of the Houston Philosophical Society, the Texas Philosophical Society, and the Houston Country Club. He was also a communicant of Trinity Church. Watkin was a charter member of the Rice Institute Faculty Club. He became a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1913, and was elected to its College of Fellows in 1949.

William Ward Watkin died on June 24, 1952 from complications following surgery for a broken kneecap. He was survived by his wife, Josephine Cockrell Watkin, whom he had married in 1933. Watkin had previously been married to Annie Ray Townsend Watkin, who died in 1929. Their three children were Annie Ray Watkin Biehl Hoagland Strange, Rosemary Watkin Barrick, and William Ward Watkin, Jr.

Early Rice Building Years

At the time of Watkin's employment, 1909, Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson had received the commission to produce a campus plan and to design the initial buildings of the Rice Institute in Houston, Texas. Watkin worked on the development of both the campus plan and the building plan in the Boston office. When construction was to begin, in the summer of 1910, Watkin was sent to Houston to serve as Cram, Goodhue & Ferguson's representative supervisor.

In this capacity Watkin not only oversaw the construction of the initial Institute group of buildings - the Administration Building, the Mechanical Laboratory and Powerhouse, and the North and South residence halls - but most of the Institute's subsequent development. This included the Physics Laboratory (1913-1915), East Hall (1913-1914), West Hall (1915-1916), three proposed President's houses(1913, 1915, 1923-1924), the Field House (1920), the Chemistry Laboratory (1923-1925), a proposed Alumni Hall (1927), two proposed libraries (1927, 1940-1941), and the Founder 's Statue (1927-1930).

Watkin himself designed the Faculty Club-Cohen House (1927), the original Rice Stadium (1938), and the Naval ROTC Building (1941). He also served as consulting architect to Staub & Rather in the design and construction of the Fondren Library (1946-1949), M.D. Anderson Hall (1946-1947), and Abercrombie Laboratory (1947-1948).

Academic Career at Rice Institute

As supervising architect during the building of the Rice Institute, Watkin worked closely with Dr. Edgar Odell Lovett, president of the Rice Institute. As a result of this professional relationship, Lovett offered Watkin a faculty appointment and the Institute opened in the fall of 1912 with Watkin as the only instructor in architectural engineering. In 1914 the architecture faculty expanded to two, and to three in 1915.

In the summer of 1916 Watkin was made an assistant professor and in 1922 he became a full professor. Watkin was also the first chairman of the Architecture Department. Rice awarded the first professional degrees in architecture in 1917.

Academic Career at Rice Institute

Watkin's efforts to provide his students with a thorough course in architectural studies led him to organize a traveling fellowship in 1928, which is now known as the William Ward Watkin Traveling Fellowship. His assignments also inspired the theme of the first Archi-Arts Ball, sponsored by the Architectural Society of the Rice Institute.

Watkin's academic duties were not restricted to the Architecture department. He was also Curator of Grounds, Chairman of the Faculty Committee on Buildings and Grounds, and Chairman of the Faculty Committee on Outdoor Sports, a position which resulted in his serving a term as president of the Southwest Conference in 1920. At the time of his sabbatical in the 1928-1929 academic year, Watkin resigned the athletic committee post. He remained, however, head of Buildings and Grounds, as his resignation of this post was not accepted by Dr. Lovett. During World War II, Watkin chaired the Committee on Air Raid Protection and Civilian Defense.

Civic Work

As early as 1912 Watkin accepted independent architectural commissions. Watkin's work falls into several categories: institutional (schools, social clubs, churches), commercial, and residential. 

In 1912, Watkin was accepting independent architectural commissions. Between 1913 and 1915 he entered into partnership with George Endress of Austin, practicing under the name Endress and Watkin. This firm was dissolved at the end of 1919 and Watkin thereafter practiced under his own name. Watkin's association with Rice brought commissions from other educational institutions in Texas: Sam Houston Normal Institute in Huntsville, Sul Ross Normal Institute in Alpine, Texas A&M College in College Station, Victoria Junior College in Victoria, and the College of Industrial Arts (now Texas Women's University) in Denton. In 1924, in association with Sanguinet, Statts & Hedrick of Fort Worth, Watkin obtained the commission to develop a campus plan for the Texas Technological College in Lubbock, and to design the initial buildings - the Administration Building, the Textile Engineering Building, the Women's Building and the President's House. Watkin also served as consultant to the Houston School Board from 1924-1926, in connection with the design and construction of seven secondary school buildings. He laid out the campus of Kinkaid School in 1924, designing the lower school (1925), the gymnasium (1937), and the upper school (1946).

Civic Work

Watkin designed several facilities for the Young Men's and Young Women's Chrisitian Associations - a YMCA building in Beaumont, the YWCA Activities building in Houston (in association with Birdsall P. Briscoe and Maurice J. Sullivan) and the YWCA building in Galveston. In 1922 Watkin was called upon to prepare plans for the Museum of Fine Arts, a project completed in two stages, 1924 and 1926, for which Cram and Ferguson acted as consultants. He also received a number of commissions for structures in Houston Parks, designing the Miller Memorial Outdoor Theater (1921), activities centers for Root Square (1937), Hennessey Park and Proctor Plaza (1938), and the Garden Center in Hermann Park (1938-1940).

Ecclesiastical commissions included the First Methodist Church of Wichita Falls (1926, in association with Hedrick and Gottlieb), the Edward Albert Palmer Memorial Chapel (1927), St. Mark's Church, Beaumont (1942, in association with Stone & Pitts), the chancel reconstruction and Golding Chapel at Christ Church (1938-1939, in association with Carl A. Mulvey), and the Central Church of Christ (1940-1941, 1945-1947). Following his work on the Houston Public Library, Watkin prepared a proposal for a municipal library in Corpus Christi (1927) and served as consultant to Staub & Rather in the design of the Lake Charles, Louisiana, Public Library. From 1946-1951, Watkin, in association with Stayton Nunn, Milton McGinty, and Vance Phenix, was involved in the design and construction of the Methodist Hospital and Wiess Memorial Chapel.

Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson received work in Texas with which Watkin was associated as local representative as well. These projects included a parish house for St. Mark's, Beaumont (1915), Trinity Church (1917 - 1919), and the Autry House (1921). Watkin also represented the firm in the design of the Houston Public Library (1926) and a proposed South End Christian Church (1930).

Commercial and Residential Work

The commercial work for which Watkin was responsible was of a generally small-scale character. He prepared a design for an eighteen story Cotton Exchange Building, but it was not constructed. His largest commercial projects were the Southern Drug Co. building (1916), several buildings for the T.H. Scanlan Estate (1925, 1926, 1927, 1932, 1935), the Princess Louise Hotel in Corpus Christi (1927, in association with Hardy & Curran), and Wilson's Stationery Co. building (1932). Smaller commissions comprised Ye Old College Inn (1921), the addition of flanking wings to the South Texas Commercial National Bank (1922), the A-B-C South Main grocery store (1928), a one story building for Palmer Hutcheson (1931), and a one story building for F.A. Heitmann (1937). For investment purposes, Watkin designed and built an apartment house - the Windward Court - and a one story commercial block at South Main and Isabella (1928).

Commercial and Residential Work

Watkin produced many residential designs, particularly during the 1920's. Most of his houses were located in the South End suburbs near Rice Institute - Southmore, Montrose Place, Shady Side, Turner Addition, West Eleventh Place, Shadowlawn, Broadacres, Edgemont, Southampton Place and Riverside terrace. He also did houses outside of Houston: Two in Beaumont, a house in Keokuk, Iowa, for the parents of Howard Hughes, Sr. and the "Casa de Manana" in Sugarland for W.T. Eldridge, Jr. For a number of Houston subdivisions, Watkin served as landscape consultant, designing ornamental gateways and walls, and laying out plantings. Courtlandt Place (1913) was the earliest such commission; similar ones followed for Southampton Place and Broadacres (1923). During the thirties, Watkin did only a few houses, notably extensive additions to the George S. Cohen house and the Dr. James A. Hill house (1939).

In 1919 Watkin had ceased his affiliation with Cram and Ferguson, but he continued to operate, on a commission basis, as supervisor for their Texas projects, in addition to pursuing his own practice. These projects included the Mendelsohnn Apartments (1917) and the Cleveland Sewall house (1925).  Watkin also acted as the local associate for James P. Jamieson of St. Louis on the design and construction of Shady Side (1916-1917), and for Sibley and Featherstone of New York on the proposed Park View condominium apartments (1926). In 1933 Watkin was appointed to the Board of Architectural Consultants, an advisory group connected with the design of the Federal Triangle in Washington, D.C.

Publications

During the teens and twenties, Watkin wrote articles for journals, primarily dealing with Houston, its growth and development, and the implications these held for the city's architecture. Watkin contributed descriptive pieces on the Rice Institute to Progressive Houston and the Southern Architectural Review, Houston's short-lived architectural magazine. Not until the late twenties did he become more involved in research and writing.

 In 1930 the Rice Institute Pamphlet published a series of lectures Watkin had given on the new architecture in Europe; Pencil Points reprinted these in 1931. Watkin wrote two additional essays for Pencil Points, one published in 1931 on new directions in ecclesiastical architecture, and another in 1932. This former essay was something of a preliminary discussion to Watkin's first book, The Church of Tomorrow, published in 1936. In 1951 Watkin's second book, Planning and Building the Modern Church, was published. At the time of his death he was planning to write a book on architecture in Texas.

Ray Watkin Hoagland Strange

Ray Watkin Strange, William Ward Watkin's eldest child, served Rice in many areas, working on university committees, permanently endowing the William Ward Watkin Traveling Scholarship in Architecture, and supporting the Rice University Archives named in honor of her parents.

Ray Watkin Hoagland Strange was born Annie Ray Watkin on May 11, 1915, the first child of parents William Ward Watkin and Annie Ray Townsend Watkin in Houston, TX at the Watkin residence, 5009 Caroline. She was home schooled through second grade by her mother and then entered the Kinkaid School (San Jacinto at Elgin) where she graduated from the tenth grade. The family traveled to France in 1928-29 for her father to study architecture. In 1930 she entered Chatham Hall, an Episcopal Preparatory School in Chatham, VA and majored in American history. She attended Rice Institute from Sept. 1932 to June 1936, graduating with a baccalaureate degree in liberal arts with a major in French. She was queen of Rice Institute's Archi-Arts Ball in 1936 and the same year was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Ray Watkin pursued a master of arts degree in the history of art at Rice Institute under the auspices of the School of Architecture and professor James Chillman. She received her MA in 1944. Watkin served as secretary of the Houston chapter of the American Red Cross through 1945 and as Red Cross Arts and Skills Corps Chairman in 1947. She was involved in managing the Watkin family land and oil properties all over the states of Texas and Louisiana. In 1961 married Henry W. Hoagland, spending time between Boston, Houston, Kennebunkport, ME and Tucson, AZ. Following Hoagland's death, Ray Watkin married Robert F. Strange on Jan. 25, 1997. The couple lived in Brenham, TX until he died in 2001. Strange lived in Houston, TX until her death in 2011.

Ray Watkin Hoagland Strange

Ray Watkin Strange served on many committees at Rice and helped to establish several foundations. She formed the Rice Alumni History Committee in 1975, now the Alumni Archives Committee, and permanently endows the William Ward Watkin Traveling Scholarship in Architecture. In 1975, she organized an alumni history committee to interview important professors and alumni. She served on the Rice History Committee that edited and underwrote the first official history of Rice, A History of Rice University: The Institute Years 1907-1963, by Fredericka Meiners (1982). She established the William Ward Watkin Endowed Chair in Architecture in 1999. She was an honorary board member of the Rice Historical Society and has underwritten a book on Capt. James A. Baker's role in the development of Rice. Watkin Strange donated materials and support to the Rice University Archives (named in honor of her parents as the "William Ward Watkin and Annie Ray Watkin University Archives") at the Woodson Research Center, Fondren Library.