Charles I. Barber

Who was Charles I. Barber?

Charles Ives Barber was an American architect, active primarily in Knoxville, Tennessee, and vicinity, during the first half of the 20th century. He was cofounder of the firm, Barber & McMurry, through which he designed or codesigned buildings such as the Church Street Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the General Building, and the Knoxville YMCA, as well as several campus buildings for the University of Tennessee and numerous elaborate houses in West Knoxville. Several buildings designed by Barber have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The son of mail-order architect George Franklin Barber, Charles Barber studied at the University of Pennsylvania under Paul Cret, from whom he absorbed the Beaux-Arts style. For most of his career, he primarily designed houses and religious structures, though he also designed schools, clubhouses and courthouses. During the 1930s and 1940s, Barber designed several structures for federal entities such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Civilian Conservation Corps.