About Richard Chenoweth

I'm an award-winning architect, architectural historian, and painter. I was the principal designer of the competition-winning Washington Metro canopy, now built at more than forty stations across the region. My digital reconstructions of B. Henry Latrobe's lost U.S. Capitol have earned three fellowships from the U.S. Capitol Historical Society.

In 2001 my firm, Lourie & Chenoweth LLC, won the international design competition for the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority's (WMATA) prototypical canopy. I was the principal designer during the competition and the Metro Canopy Pilot Program, and Jon and I went on to design about fifty canopies, including the ninety-foot glass dome at Dupont Circle North Station.
Metro Canopy Program

For more than twenty-five years I ran my own practice, focused on transit architecture, residential architecture and design-build, and historic preservation. In residential work I take a typological approach and am adept at both historical and modern languages. Since 2022 I have been an architect in the Preservation Studio at Glavé & Holmes Architecture in Richmond, Virginia.
Residential Architecture

As an architectural historian, I use original drawings, letters, and documents to reconstruct lost or destroyed works of architecture digitally, beginning with Latrobe's Capitol as it stood before it was burned in 1814. I have published this research in Arris, The Capitol Dome, and Le Libellio d'Aegis, and presented it at conferences of the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians (SESAH) and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA).
Architectural History Research

I am also an illustrator, painter, and sculptor. I was chief illustrator for every issue of Cottage Living Magazine, created the illustrations for the Lowe's Katrina Cottages, and served as president of the American Society of Architectural Illustrators. I have donated many of my original paintings of Washington subjects to the Library of Congress. From August 2018 to August 2022 I taught at the Mississippi State University School of Architecture.
Projects

Recognition: awards, press, and collections
My portfolio (PDF, 23 MB)

Employment

• 2022–present Architect, Preservation Studio, Glavé & Holmes Architecture, Richmond, VA
• 2018–2022 Visiting Assistant Professor, School of Architecture and Building Construction Science Program, Mississippi State University
• 2004–2009 Chief Illustrator, Cottage Living Magazine
• 1995–present Architectural Illustrator
• 1995–2022 Principal, Richard Chenoweth Architect and Lourie & Chenoweth LLC
• Staff Architect and Project Architect, Williams & Dynerman Architects, Washington, DC

Education

• 1989 Master of Architecture, University of Virginia
• 1979 B.S., Vanderbilt University

Awards

• 2017 Portrait Society of America, Members' Competition: ninth place, Commissioned Portrait category, for a portrait of John Keats
• 2014 Portrait Society of America, Merit Award, for a bas-relief portrait of the Reverend Alison Boden
• 2012 American Society of Architectural Illustrators, Award of Excellence, for a reconstruction drawing of the U.S. Capitol under construction
• 2011 American Society of Architectural Illustrators, Award of Excellence, for a reconstruction drawing of the Paris grain market in 1786
• 2001 Gabriel Prize, Western European Architecture Foundation, for the graphic study of French classical architecture
• 2001 Winner, international design competition for WMATA's prototypical Metro canopy (Lourie & Chenoweth LLC)

Fellowships and Grants

• 2017 U.S. Capitol Historical Society and Architect of the Capitol research fellowship: B. Henry Latrobe's Egyptian Revival design for the Library of Congress
• 2010 U.S. Capitol Historical Society fellowship: research and reconstruction of the Latrobe–Franzoni Statue of Liberty of 1807
• 2001 U.S. Capitol Historical Society fellowship: "Rooms of Light: Visualizations of the Hall of Representatives and the Senate Chamber, 1808–1814"

Publications

• 2024 "Latrobe's Site Plan for Capitol Hill (1803): Discovering Graphic Complexity in Landscape Design and its Representation." Arris 35.
• 2022 "Latrobe, Franzoni and the Nation's First Statue of Liberty." Arris 33.
• 2022 "Latrobe's Egyptian Library of Congress: Enlightenment and Imperialism." Le Libellio d'Aegis 18, no. 3: 9–19.
• 2020 "Latrobe, Franzoni and the Nation's First Statue of Liberty" (abridged). Proceedings of the ACSA 108th Annual Meeting.
• 2020 "Jefferson Versus Latrobe: Reconstructing the Lost Vision." Palladiana, Spring 2020.
• 2016 "Latrobe, Franzoni, and the First Statue of Liberty, 1807–1814." The Capitol Dome 53, no. 1: 24–39.
• 2015 "Jefferson's Peregrinations and the Verniquet Plan of Paris." Le Libellio d'Aegis 11, no. 4: 25–30.
• 2014 "Jefferson's Capitol: The Most Beautiful Room in the World?" The Capitol Dome 51, no. 3: 24–39.
• 2012 "The Very First Miss Liberty." Le Libellio d'Aegis 8, no. 2: 67–74.
• 2011 "Latrobe, Jefferson, and the Building of the First Capitol." Le Libellio d'Aegis 7, no. 3: 39–48.

Papers and Talks

• 2023 "Latrobe's Proposal for a Greek Propylaea Western Entrance to the Capitol." SESAH Annual Conference, Little Rock, AR.
• 2022 "Latrobe's Site Plan for the Capitol (1803)." SESAH Annual Conference, Memphis, TN.
• 2021 "Latrobe's Egyptian Library of Congress: Echoes of Enlightenment and Imperialism – A Digital Investigation." SESAH Annual Conference, Natchez, MS.
• 2020 "The Collaboration of B. Henry Latrobe and Giuseppe Franzoni to Create the Nation's First Statue of Liberty – A Digital Investigation." SESAH Annual Conference (virtual).
• 2020 "The Collaboration of B. Henry Latrobe and Giuseppe Franzoni to Create the Nation's First Statue of Liberty – A Digital Investigation." ACSA 108th Annual Meeting (virtual).
• 2019 "Jefferson Versus Latrobe: The Struggle to Build the South Wing of the Capitol – A Digital Investigation." Richard Guy Wilson Symposium, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.
• 2019 "Jefferson Versus Latrobe: The Struggle to Build the South Wing of the Capitol – A Digital Investigation." SESAH Annual Conference, Greenville, SC.
• 2019 Invited speaker on digital tools for historic investigations. AIA Alabama Conference, Gulf Shores, AL.
• 2017 Lecture on the reconstruction of Beersheba Springs, TN. Atlanta Preservation Center.
• 2014–2016 Lectures, Beersheba Springs Historical Society, Beersheba Springs, TN.
• 2014 Lecture on the Capitol of Jefferson's era. Evergreen Museum & Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.
• 2014 "Old Hall of the House of Representatives," a forensic reconstruction of the Hall before the 1814 burning of the Capitol. U.S. Capitol Historical Society, Washington, DC. Watch on C-SPAN (62 min).
• 2011 Lecture. Jewish Center of Princeton, Princeton, NJ.

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