JAMES BARNES

www.jamesbarnesarchitects.com

risd connection: Bachelor of Architecture, 1969; Professor, Departments of Architecture and Interior Architecture

professional practice: James Barnes Architects, a general practice in Providence, RI, for residential and commercial clients ranging from small law firms to educational institutions.

breaking in: At age 16 Barnes picked up some early architectural basics while working as an office boy in a Fall River, MA, architect’s office. While at RISD, he set out to get the full professional picture through an undergrad NEA Travel Fellowship that financed a cross-country tour of architectural firms. A stop in Chicago led to a summer internship at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Upon graduation, he won the AIA Henry Adams Medal for Excellence in Design.

the road to risd: In 1969, hoping for a teaching deferral from the draft, Barnes accepted a combined junior instructor/master’s studies offer from Montana State (“the Army rejected my deferral, but fortunately I failed the physical”). After discovering in Montana that “teaching was a continually rewarding and stimulating career,” in 1972 he headed back East and joined the RISD Architecture Department as an assistant professor.

making it: “I’ve survived by being a generalist,” says Barnes of his practice, located in Providence’s historic Jewelry District, where over the past few years his team of four RISD grads has tackled a few major on-campus projects for RISD while doing a couple of new houses each year, a dozen or more house additions, and commercial interior and space planning projects. Formerly department head of Interior Architecture and acting dean of the Division of Architectural Studies, he has been a juror for the AIA and leads RISD’s Wintersession architecture travel program in France each year.

discoveries: (1) “You plant and mature a garden the same way you create architecture – by always starting out fresh.” (2) “I feel lucky that my life as an artist, designer and teacher is all one seamless experience; so much is separate today between life and work.” (3) “I’m a bit of a Francophile – Paris is the only city I know as well as Providence.”

education
Montana State University, Master of Science in Applied Science, 1972
Rhode Island School of Design, Bachelor of Architecture, 1969

awards
Rhode Island Monthly Magazine, Design Excellence Award, 2002, 2000
John R. Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1998
Rhode Island Monthly Magazine, Silver Award, Commercial Interiors, 1998
Rhode Island Monthly Magazine, Bronze Award, Residential Interiors, 1995-96