Charles M. Robinson

Robinson’s obituary stated that he was associated with the construction of buildings costing over $30,000,000.

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Robinson’s August 1932 news obituary while he was a resident of “Miribeth Farm, Hampton, Virginia [having left Richmond in 1926 leaving the day-to-day [non-marketing] operations of Charles M. Robinson Architects in the hands of J. Binford Walford, Charles Custer Robinson and Benjamin A. Ruffin while he devoted the majority of his professional service to the College of William and Mary] states “he directed work on 1,000 projects.”

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In August 1923 he was appointed by Virginia Governor Trinkle to serve a seven-year term on the Board of Examination and Certification of Engineers, Architects and Surveyors. He was reappointed in August 1930 by Governor Pollard. He died at the Protestant Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia of stomach cancer (diagnosed in 1930) and a right-sided dilatation of the heart after being hospitalized beginning 8/13/1932. At the time of his death, he cited his residence as being Hampton, Virginia.

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The following is from Brendan Bowman’s Hiding in Plain Site: The Architecture of Charles M. Robinson, written for the Branch Museum of Architecture’s 2019 Exhibit on Charles M. Robinson and the Richmond Public Schools:

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Desiring to establish himself as an independent architect, Robinson began his own firm in Richmond in 1906, focusing mainly on designs for women’s colleges for young teachers around his home state of Virginia. His first major project was in 1908 for the State Normal School of Harrisonburg, now known as James Madison University, where he designed all of the campus’ buildings for the next 20 years. By 1910, he was also designing the first buildings of the Fredericksburg Teachers College, now the University of Mary Washington, and a handful of buildings at the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Radford, now Radford University. In 1918, Robinson started work on 21 buildings at the historically African American Normal School of Petersburg, now Virginia State University. Now having amassed so many commissions across the entire state by the early 1920s, Robinson formed a partnership with Benjamin A. Ruffin, J. Binford Walford, and his son Charles Custer Robinson – collectively known as Charles M. Robinson, Architects and based out of downtown Richmond. The firm began with designing the University of Richmond’s Science Complex and a few other buildings on campus. Robinson became the College Architect of the College of William and Mary in 1921, where he created the Sunken Garden and designed 17 buildings for the campus over the next 10 years.

During Robinson’s extensive work for Virginia colleges, he was at the same time being commissioned for public school buildings across the state. He was appointed as Richmond’s official School Board Architect in 1914, and eventually accepted the same position for the cities of Henrico, Norfolk, Petersburg, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Danville. As the School Board Architect, Robinson would design nearly all new school buildings and additions in existing schools in those cities and projects not taken on by him personally would still be overseen by him and his firm.

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In addition to his prolific designs for higher education in Virginia, he built over 400 public schools in the state – a building designed by Charles M. Robinson had stood in nearly every county of Virginia. Robinson had a rare ability to produce a prolific amount of work at a consistently high level. Depending on the client and budget his buildings could range from being modest and sensible to being imposing and impressive. They were always are well built, logically planned, financially efficient, and aesthetically pleasing. Robinson also took a great deal of care to meet the needs of the School Board, teachers and other school workers, and the children and community that he was designing for. While schools and academic buildings were a major part of Robinson’s work, he also designed a number of churches, hospitals, stores, offices, and residential structures in Richmond and around the state. He remains best known for his educational designs as he dominated school building in Virginia for 25 years and in terms of number and quality of his schools, he has never been equaled.

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Robinson retired to his farm in Hampton, VA in 1926 but remained active in the firm, designing plans at his home and traveling to inspect project sites while they were under construction. In August of 1932, Robinson was admitted to a Norfolk hospital due to his declining health and died after an operation on August 20th, 1932 at the age of 65 years old and the firm of Charles M. Robinson, Architects was terminated the following day.

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James Madison University

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James Madison University was founded as a teacher’s training college in 1908 as the State Normal and Industrial School for Women at Harrisonburg. Charles M. Robinson designed the original campus plan and first few buildings constructed for the college, including Ashby Hall, Jackson Hall, Maury Hall, and Harrison Hall. Robinson continued to design a handful of buildings for the college with his last being Wilson Hall in 1930. Buildings designed by Robinson here served many functions for the school, including dormitories, academic buildings, science laboratories, auditoriums capable of showing movies, dining facilities, faculty offices, libraries, and gymnasiums. Like all of Robinson’s designs for college campuses, his buildings at James Madison featured cohesive architectural features. Most buildings were symmetrical and had H-shaped floor plans for optimal natural lighting and ventilation. All were of masonry construction using blue limestone quarried on the campus itself, topped with hipped-roofs finished with rounded red clay tiles.

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The University of Mary Washington

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The University of Mary Washington, originally the Fredericksburg Normal School for Women, opened for its first session in the Fall of 1911 with only two buildings standing on campus – Monroe Hall as the academic building and Willard Hall as the dormitory. Charles M. Robinson intentionally designed them with multi-functional purposes in order to serve all the functions needed for the college. Robinson’s design for the campus and location for the first three structures, as well as future buildings, had ben well thought-out. The placement of the lass as they related to each other and the conditions of the grounds they were built on were thoroughly evaluated in order to establish a sense of unity, purpose, order, convenience and usefulness. Deciding to create a formal campus plan with symmetry, Robinson intentionally utilized cardinal directions when planning the location of the axial alignments of the halls. Willard Hall is oriented along a north to south axis while Monroe is placed east to west. The deliberately close placement of the buildings instilled the intimate setting of the campus and created a compact, internal courtyard to which the main entrance of each building faced. This inward facing design had a long-lasting impact on the Fredericksburg Campus, as almost every future building was also planned to face inwards. Robinson employed this directional design on all of his college campus plans for safety reasons and to enhance the collegiate experience.

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The incredibly thoughtful plans and features of Monroe and Willard Halls at the historically Fredericksburg Normal School excellently capture and represent Charles M. Robinson’s commitment to designing spaces dedicated to the education of young Virginia women during the early 20th century. During the same period, Robinson was executing the same efforts seen on this campus with other female normal schools throughout the state—such as Radford and Harrisonburg. The academic buildings at Robinson’s normal schools in Virginia were grand in scale and materials, aesthetically and physically modern for their time, and consistently provided classrooms with the latest technology and equipment explicitly intended for advancement in a range of scientific fields. Robinson expresses his progressive ideals of women’s roles in higher education and society through his architecture by doing away with gender specific designs that were typical of the time and focusing on current, best practices and crating building plans that would be equally at home at any male institution.

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Radford University

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Radford University was founded as a teacher’s training college in 1910 as the State and Industrial School for Women at Radford. Charles M. Robinson designed the original campus plan and the college’s first building, Founder’s Hall. The building, completed in 1912, housed administrative offices, a gymnasium, auditorium, library, and classrooms. Robinson also designed the college’s first dormitory, Tyler Hall, in three phases completed in 1915, 1916, and 1923. Both buildings were symmetric, featured H-shaped floor plans for increased ventilation and natural lighting, were of brick construction with stone foundations, and topped with hipped-roofs finished in asphalt shingles. Founder’s Hall featured a copper dome in the center of the building and a pediment covered porch over the front entrance supported by large columns. Tyler Hall also featured covered porches on its front and side elevations, but with smaller pediments and columns – a design element that Robinson frequently used to distinguish academic buildings from dormitories.

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The College of William & Mary

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Charles M. Robinson’s first commission at the College of William & Mary was for Jefferson Hall in 1921 followed by the construction of many more buildings in quick succession. By 1928, he had attained the status of “College Architect” and was included among College Administrators in the Colonial Echo, the college’s student yearbook. In the spring of 1923, Robinson developed a campus plan that reinterpreted the enclosed courtyard of the historic college and extend the west axis established in the 18th Century by the Wren Building, its two flakers, and the Duke of Gloucester Street. His plan documented existing buildings, buildings under construction, buildings authorized and buildings planned for future development. Robinson planned for his campus to be visually connected to the colonial campus by a long lawn, now known as the Sunken Garden.

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Robinson’s plan for the campus remained a vigorously ordered Beaux-Arts pedestrian plan with an academic court of buildings on the north and south sides of the area that would become the Sunken Garden. Additional structures would be built behind the court to the north and south, lining the city streets that defined the campus and forming a diamond-shaped plan. With his revival of the campus and new building designs, Robinson intended to combine 20th century utility with 17th century charm by preserving the feeling of Early Colonial architecture while still making structures that were modern in plans and materials and he was greatly successful in execution. Robinson’s designs for the William & Mary campus fit well within the Colonial Revival Style. His buildings on campus all have brick exterior walls and cross gable roofs with slate shingles, dentils, and dormers. The centered front gables usually feature white stone ornamentation or a circular window. His plans and window placements are typically symmetrical with paired sets of end chimneys. On most of the building facades, the first-floor windows have arched lintels with keystones. The doors are located in the center of the structures and are made out of white stone, topped with black metal balustrades and flanked with simple, think columns. Belt courses that wrap around the entire building are common. Some of his buildings on campus also feature white cupolas in the center of the roof.

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University of Richmond

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            Charles M. Robinson designed a handful of buildings for the University of Richmond in the 1920s. His main project for the institution was the original Science Group, connected by an exterior cloister that included the Puryer Hall chemistry building (1926), the Richmond Hall physics building (1929), and the Maryland Hall biology building (1932). Robinson described their architectural style as “the Old-World quaintness of English Gothic for the exteriors combined with modern American utility for the interiors.” The walls were constructed of sand finished bricks in mingled shades with limestone trim. The buildings were completely fireproof throughout – a crucial feature. All three buildings were well equipped with the latest science laboratories and amenities, as well as space for instruction and research. Other designs by Robinson at the University of Richmond included the 1919 Milhiser Gymnasium, the 1928 Cannon Memorial Chapel, and the 1929 Jenkins Outdoor Theatre.

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Virginia State University

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            Virginia State University was founded in 1882 as the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute in Petersburg and is a historically African-American school. Charles M. Robinson completed a large amount of work for the college beginning in 1918 until 1930. Robinson’s buildings served many purposes for the school, including dormitories, dining facilities, and spaces dedicated for teacher training instruction. Many of Robinson’s designs at Virginia State mirror his designs at William & Mary in terms of architectural style and amenities, such as the dormitories Seward Hall (1926) and Byrd Hall (1928). This help illustrate Robinson’s commitment to providing educational architecture for black students that is equal to what he provided for white students. The buildings were in the Colonial Revival style and symmetric rectangular plans. Exteriors featured red brick walls topped with side-gabled roofs finished with asphalt shingles and evenly spaced dormer windows. Entrances were typically covered with small porticos topped with pediments.

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Office Locations in Richmond:

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The Richmond Times Dispatch on October 24, 1907 carries the “Sealed Proposals” ad for Northside Baptist Church at Third Avenue and Fourqurean Lane and lists Tenth and Main Streets as the address of “Charles M. Robinson, Architect.” This is the first mention of Charles M. Robinson in the Richmond Newspapers. The Northside Baptist Church Commission was his fourth (out of five in 1907) in Virginia if chronological dates of plans in the Plan Archives are reviewed, behind South Boston High School (August), South Hill High School (August), Dormitory and Classroom Building for a Williamsburg Private School (September). This is the first documented presence of Charles M. Robinson in Richmond City: