Robert Burns Jr.

Robert Paschal Burns Jr. (born December 7, 1933 in Roxboro, North Carolina) was an American architect.

Burns contributed to projects such as the Juilliard and Lincoln Center.

North Carolina has the third highest number of Modernist residences in the country. Modernist design became popular in the US in the 1930s, primarily in California, and expanded east through the 1960s. Robert Burns was one of the architects who contributed to the state’s design heritage during that time. He contributed by designing houses, as well as preserving architectural heritage.

Education

Burns went to Wake Forest University and North Carolina State University, and graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture in 1957. He earned the Paris Prize, also in 1957. That same year, he studied in Europe and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts for 18 months with wife Margaret Tucker Burns.

He served in the Army around 1959 for a few months in Columbia, SC. In 1961 he entered Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a Master of Architecture degree.

Career

After earning his Master at MIT, Burns became an architect in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After working for Eduardo Catalano in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he returned to Raleigh, North Carolina in 1965 to teach at the NCSU School of Design.

During the late 60s he had a private practice as with Abie Harris as Harris & Burns at 1906 1/2 Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, North Carolina.

After that, he remarried and opened up a design studio, Burnstudio, with Norma Burns. Around 1984, the firm was mentioned in TIME as one of the top firms in the country.

Burns returned to North Carolina State and headed its architecture department from 1967 to 1974 and again from 1983 to 1991. In 1979, he was elected president of the Assn. of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

After Eduardo Catalano's Raleigh landmark house was destroyed in 2001. Burns worked closely with Catalano on two ill-fated attempts to rebuild it. Burns won the 2003 Gertrude S. Carraway Award from Preservation North Carolina for his work on the Henry Kamphoefner house. The AIANC gave him the Dietrick Medal in 2004, the same year he won the first Isosceles Award from AIA Triangle.

Projects

1961 - The Robert and Ann Work Residence, 214 Hillcrest Circle, Chapel Hill, designed with Brian Shawcroft and Charles Kahn. The house won a 1962 AIANC award for Kahn.

1967 - The Cliff and Lucie Wing Residence, 2722 Spencer Street, Durham, North Carolina. 3420 square feet.

1968 - The John and Janie Whaley House, 1001 Vance Drive, Tarboro, NC.

1969 - The Donald and Dorothy Huisingh Residence, 1213 Kingston Ridge Road, Cary, NC. Won an AIANC Merit Award in 1969. Built by Paul Childers.

1969 - The Richard D. and Bernice E. Hobbet House, 8 Heath Place, Durham, NC

1971 - The John Irving Brooks, Jr. House, 1507 Captains Road, Tarboro, NC.

Death

Burns died in 2005 from an auto accident near his farm, in Bennett, North Carolina. A service was held February 26, 2006, at the Longview Center in Raleigh, NC. The program is to the right.

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References