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Albert Simons (1890 – 1980), had an immensely influential sixty-year career as an architect and preservationist in Charleston, South Carolina, where he is best known for his extensive amount of preservation work and architectural design. He played a key role in the Charleston Renaissance, wherein he would helped create many nationally prominent preservation functions such as the first historic district and the first Board of Architectural Review (BAR). As a professor at the College of Charleston for over 20 years, he would develop the School of the Arts and is honored yearly through the Simons Medal of Excellence.

Early Life & Family
Born in 1890, Albert Simons was descended from a long line of influential Charleston families. His father, Dr. Thomas Grange Simons, was a physician and a public servant who encouraged public health through the advocacy of proper sewers and infrastructure. Simon’s uncle, William Martin Aiken, was a very successful architect who designed many large classical building projects, such as “The Old Post Office Pavilion” in Washington D.C.

Albert Simons study his first year at the College of Charleston and completed his B.S. and M.S. degrees in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation he would travel through Europe and Northern Africa studying architecture, and finish his trip studying at the Atelier Hébrard in Paris. During his travels, Simons would create hundreds of wonderful travel sketches and watercolors, fulfilling the Beaux-Arts-instilled desire to learn through sketching great examples of architecture. Upon returning to Charleston in 1915, he would become one of the first instructors of architecture at the Clemson University Architecture school. During this time, Simons would also briefly partner in the firm of Todd, Simons and Todd, until he began to serve in the U.S. Army during WWI.

Simons & Lapham
On July 8th, 1920, when Albert Simons was 30 years old, he would join forces with Samuel Lapham VI and create the firm “Simons & Lapham.” Their work correlated mainly with traditional homes, but also with industrial, religious, educational, public buildings, transportation buildings, and restorations. Even though the firm developed through the great depression, they would prove to be very successful throughout the 1930’s. Their main commissions would come through federally sponsored work, like the College of Charleston gymnasium, or large plantation projects funded by wealthy northerners.

Throughout the years though, the firm would come to receive local and national acclaim for work in the area of architectural design and preservation. Samuel & Lapham would work actively with the Charleston City government to protect and restore historic home, and both of the partners were extensively involved with the American Building Survey. Some of the firm’s most famous work included assistance with restoration of Charleston’s famous “Rainbow Row”, the renovation of the Planter’s Hotel on Church St. into Dock St. in Charleston, South Carolina and the design of the new Memminger Auditorium in Charleston, South Carolina. In additions to their work, both partners co-edited books of detailed historic research on the architecture of Charleston including, The Octagonal Library of Early American Architecture, Vol 1: Charleston, SC (1927) and Plantations of the Carolina Low Country (1939).

Other Achievements
In Simons years of work in Charleston, he would help create the first historic district in America, the first Board of Architectural Review (BAR), and work actively as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He also would play a key role in the Society for the Preservation of Old Dwellings, known today as the Preservation Society of Charleston, and as a key member on the team that produced This is Charleston, a building-by-building study of the historic peninsula.

Simons Medal of Excellence
Albert Simons began teaching at the College of Charleston in 1924, and would go on to create the first Art History course at the college later that year. He would continue to teach at the college until 1948, where he would help evolve this single course into the School of the Arts. Today, the schools department building is named in his honor, Albert Simons Center for the Arts.. After the 20 year anniversary of the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts, the Simons Medal of Excellence was established to honor qualified individuals who have excelled in one or more of the areas in which Albert Simons excelled, including civic design, architectural design, historic preservation and urban planning. Past recipients have included: The Hon. Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. (2010), John D. Milner, FAIA (2011), Andres Duany, FAIA, and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (2012), Allan Greenberg and HRH Prince Charles of Wales (2013), Richard Jenrette and Thomas Gordon Smith in (2014), Antoinette Lee (2015), and Robert A. M. Stern (2016).