Thomas Ustick Walter

Thomas Ustick Walter (born Sept. 4, 1804, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—died Oct. 30, 1887, Philadelphia) was an American architect important for the quality and influence of his designs based upon ancient Greek models.

Walter was professor of architecture at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia; engineer for the harbour at La Guaira, Venez. (1843–45); and president of the American Institute of Architects (1876–87), which in 1857 he had helped to found. His style was partially formed by two brief periods of employment in the Philadelphia office of the classical revival architect William Strickland.

In 1833 Walter was selected to design the main building of Girard College in Philadelphia, and the form that he finally gave to Founders’ Hall remains one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in the United States. Another of his Greek Revival masterpieces in the Philadelphia area is Andalusia, the home of Nicolas Biddle, one of the trustees of Girard College. Walter is better known, however, for the additions that he made to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., and especially for the massive cast-iron dome with which he replaced the earlier low wooden one (1855–63). Illustrative of Walter’s rare use of styles other than the Greek Revival was the Gothic design of the Philadelphia county prison (Moyamensing), with its Egyptian-style debtors’ wing (1835). His last years were spent in the architectural office of John McArthur, Jr., where he is assumed to have had some part in the design of the Philadelphia City Hall.