William Alciphron Boring (September 9, 1859 – May 5, 1937) was an American
architect noted for co-designing the Immigration Station at
Ellis Island in
New York harbor.
Career
Boring studied first at the
University of Illinois, then spent an additional year (1885) as a student at
Columbia University. In 1886, he maintained a partnership in Los Angeles with architects Solomon I. Haas (1857–1945) and E.L. Caukins.[1] From 1887 to 1890, Boring studied architecture at the
École des Beaux-Arts in Paris along with his friend
Edward Lippincott Tilton. Boring and Tilton returned to New York in 1890 to work in the office of
McKim, Mead, and White.
In 1891, Boring and Tilton left
McKim, Mead, and White to form their own architectural partnership. Among their notable works were the Casino in Belle Haven, Connecticut (1891) and the
Hotel Colorado in the resort town of
Glenwood Springs, Colorado (1891). The partnership's work culminated in the 1897 design for the new federal Immigration Station at
Ellis Island. This work was honored with a gold medal for Architecture at the Exposition Universelle, Paris (1900); a gold medal at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo (1901); and a silver medal at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis (1904). The partnership of Boring & Tilton ended in 1904. The men started working independently of one another but continued to share offices and equipment until 1915. In 1913, Boring was elected into the
National Academy of Design as an Associate member.[2]
In 1916, Boring joined the faculty of the
Columbia School of Architecture, where he eventually became Director in 1919 and Dean from 1931 to 1932. As dean of architecture at Columbia Boring, and especially his successor
Joseph Hudnut, encouraged the then-nascent modernism and incorporated studies in town planning.
Works
Early works
Fire House Number 1, now a state historic site known as the
Old Plaza Firehouse; Los Angeles, California, 1884
Mackay, Robert B.; Baker, Anthony K. and Traynor, Carol A. (eds.) Long Island Country Houses and Their Architects, 1860–1940 (1997) New York: Norton
ISBN0-393-03856-4
Morrone, Francis An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn (2001) Gibbs Smith,
ISBN978-1-58685-047-0