William Strickland

William Strickland (Navesink, New Jersey, 1788 – Nashville, Tennessee, 1854) was an American architect and civil engineer and one of the leading figures of the Greek Revival in the first half of the nineteenth century. Before turning to architecture he worked as a painter of scenes, illustrator and aquatint engraver, and he studied with Benjamin Latrobe between 1803 and 1805. His design for the Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia (1819–1824) was chosen over that of his former teacher, partly because its plainer Greek style suited the bank's wishes, and it remains one of his best-known works.

In Philadelphia he also built the Merchants' Exchange (1832–34), the Naval Asylum and the Mint, and he designed buildings in other cities, including the branch mint in New Orleans and the Providence Athenaeum. He was also a busy railroad engineer and built the Delaware Breakwater, the first of its kind in the Americas. His last major project, the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, where he was buried by a special act of the legislature, is considered by many his finest achievement.

Strickland was among the first Americans to lecture on architecture, and his office trained Thomas Ustick Walter, who carried the Greek Revival forward.