Arthur W. Rice

Arthur Wallace Rice, FAIA (July 8, 1869 – March 23, 1938) was a prominent architect in Boston during the early 20th Century as a major contributor to the Beaux-Arts architectural movement in America.

In his early years in partnership with William Y. Peters, he focused on large residences in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston, primarily in the Georgian Revival style.

As a partner in the firm of Parker, Thomas & Rice, he produced a number of landmark buildings and early skyscrapers in the Beaux-Arts style.

Near the end of his career, his 1929 United Shoe Machinery Corporation Building in Boston was notable as one of the first skyscrapers in America to be built in the Art-Deco style that would become very popular in the following two decades.

In the next year, he studied architecture in Paris under the direction of famed architect Henri Duray at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, returning to Boston in late 1892.

His first major Beaux-Art work was the remodel of the Walter Cabot Baylies House (1905) at 5 Commonwealth Ave. also in the Back Bay.