In 1888, he moved to
Chicago, securing a position as a draftsman in the office of prominent architects
Jenney & Mundie, where he rose to the position of head draftsman.
In 1894, after taking a course at
The Art Institute of Chicago, he became an independent architect. Shortly thereafter, Waid submitted two designs for buildings at Monmouth College (Illinois). Having moved to New York City by 1898, Waid and an associate submitted the winning design in a competition for the
Long Island College Hospital in
Brooklyn, New York where they acted as their own
draftsmen and specification writers. When that job was completed, they opened a small office on
Fifth Avenue in New York City and were also appointed architect for the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, which had offices in the same building. This led to his design of hospitals in
Alaska and
Puerto Rico as well as schools in the western United States and
Cuba.[2]
During
World War I, Waid served as deputy director of production and as one of the executives of the organization of architects that designed and built housing structures for some twenty-five shipbuilding yards.[3]
Waid's career reached its pinnacle when he became chief architect for the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and designed, with his business partner
Harvey Wiley Corbett, the Home Office Building at 11 Madison Avenue and now known as the
Metropolitan Life North Building. Originally planned to be the tallest building in the world at 100 stories, it was a victim of the depression and was capped off at 29 floors. In stark contrast with his early work, the modern office building would eschew, "extraneous ornament or embellishment which has not a rational meaning and practical use" and that it would be "unhampered by
archaeological precedent."[4]
He was president of the New York state Board of Examiners and Registration of Architects from 1915 until 1923.[1]
He endowed a fine arts department at Monmouth College in memory of his first wife Eva Clark Waid (January 1869 – June 1929). He also donated $80,000 towards a new gymnasium that his firm was designing and then topped off that gift with another $10,000 to build the Waid Swimming Pool in that building. At the time of his death, the Waids were the largest donors in the history of the college.
He married a second time, to Phyllis Fellowes Colmore, a British subject, on Feb. 2, 1934 but had no children from either marriage.[3] In 1936, he restored the bronze and marble
Pulitzer Fountain in New York City.[8] More significantly, he left $300,000 to the American Institute of Architects.[2]
Monmouth College Gymnasium, Monmouth, Illinois (1923, Classical Revival)
Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower, northern annex, in New York City (1921); demolished to make way for Metropolitan Life North Building also designed by Waid
Buildings at
The College of Wooster,
Ohio, including President's House (
c. 1926, Gothic Revival), Douglass Hall (1929,
Collegiate Gothic), Galpin Hall (1932, Gothic Revival), Babcock Hall (1936, Collegiate Gothic) and at least one of the Henderson Memorial Apartments (1939)[25]
Home Office Building, also known as the Metropolitan Life North Building, New York City (started 1928, finished 1950,
Art Deco)[26]
References
^
abcWhite, James Terry (1893). The National Cyclopædia of American biography. New York, New York: J. T. White & company. pp. 347–348.
ISBN9780883710401.
^
abcdVosbeck, R. Randall.
"A Legacy of Leadership"(PDF). The American Institute of Architects, Washington, D.C. pp. 58–59. Archived from
the original(PDF) on March 7, 2015. Retrieved November 3, 2015.
^Wolff, Harold.
"Historic Home Tour". Beverly Area Planning Association. Archived from
the original on September 28, 2015. Retrieved November 10, 2015.