Charles Robinson’s Albert Hill School, erected in 1926, originally the Richmond Normal School for teachers in training (Photo courtesy Boynton Rothschild Rowland Architects)
One of the Commonwealth’s most prolific architects, Charles M. Robinson is almost completely unknown to the general public today, even though his buildings — including William Fox Elementary, the Altria Theater, Thomas Jefferson High School, Laburnum Court and the L.H. Jenkins Bookbindery Building (home of Richmond magazine) — continue to play major roles in our daily lives. “Hiding in Plain Sight: The Architecture of Charles M. Robinson,” a new exhibition at The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design on display Oct. 3-Jan. 5, 2020, aims to raise the profile of the man who designed hundreds of public school buildings and university campuses across Virginia between 1906 and 1932.
“Charles Robinson was such a prolific architect and is relatively unknown today,” says Sally Brown, a past president and member of the Branch Museum’s board of trustees and the exhibition chair. “His inventiveness and philosophy of open-air school rooms was important then and now. He seemed to care more about the people and their well-being and the function of the building than many architects today.”
The son of James T. Robinson, an architect and builder based in Loudoun County, Charles Morrison Robinson (1867-1932) apprenticed with an architect in Detroit around 1887. He opened his first architectural practice in Western Pennsylvania in 1889 and designed more than 60 buildings in the region before returning to Virginia in 1906.
Opportunity beckoned: Robinson opened an office on Main Street and competed for, and won, the contracts to design new school buildings and Normal Schools (teachers’ colleges) for the new public school system mandated by the Virginia Constitution of 1902, which emphasized public education even though it also disenfranchised much of the black population. By 1907 Robinson had designed five schools, and by 1908 he was designing another 15, including his first in Richmond.
“Robinson’s career exploded in Virginia, largely due to his skills as a designer of educational structures,” says Brenden Bowman, the exhibition curator. “He was prolific, passionate and progressive in his work. He talked a lot about designing schools for women and teachers and making them on par with men’s colleges, and gave black schools the same amenities he put in white schools.”
In 1908, Robinson won the competition to design seven buildings for the new state Normal School in Harrisonburg, now James Madison University, and went on to design the original buildings for the new Normal Schools now known as University of Mary Washington, Radford University and Virginia State University. Additional college commissions poured in during the 1920s: He oversaw the expansion of the Wren campus at William & Mary and created buildings for Bridgewater College; Eastern College; Richmond Professional Institute, now Virginia Commonwealth University; and Washington & Lee University.
“During his career in Virginia, Robinson was appointed School Board Architect for Richmond, Henrico County, Norfolk County, Petersburg, Portsmouth, Suffolk and Danville,” Bowman says. “Robinson was an extraordinary architect. He had the rare ability to produce a high volume of work at a consistently high level and was skilled in and worked in many styles. His schools in Richmond, for example, range from the Arts & Crafts style to Gothic to Art Deco. He also designed sanitariums for the Virginia Board of Health, hospitals, churches, department stores, office buildings and private residences in addition to educational structures. His volume of work is so great, that we’ve had to focus the exhibit on his work on public schools and universities.”
The exhibit explores Robinson’s life and work through his massive portfolio of public schools and university campuses through original architectural renderings, photographs, artifacts and ephemera on loan from Robinson family and other private collections.
“Hiding in Plain Sight: The Architecture of Charles M. Robinson,” opens Oct. 3 at The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design and runs through Jan. 5, 2020. Suggested admission $5.
