Rodney Mims Cook, Jr. is a graduate of Washington and Lee University. At age 14, he initiated the campaign which successfully saved the 5000+ seat Fox Theatre for which he received the National Trust Preservation Prize.
In 1974, he was a White House intern. In 1982, he established Rodney Mims Cook Interests, a design/development company.
In 1987, he established PolitesCook Architects which designed the Newington Cropsey Museum, NY, housing the largest American collection of Hudson River School paintings (Arthur Ross Award to founder). He is a Founding Trustee of The Prince of Wales’s Foundation for Architecture and organized the design and construction of the Princes’ Olympic Games Monument in Atlanta with Anton Glikine, et al.
He is a charter signer of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Cook is currently orchestrating the design for a memorial library in Washington, D.C. to Presidents John and John Quincy Adams and their wives Abigail and Louisa Johnson Adams. Cook’s design proposal with co-designer Michael Franck won the 2011 commendation prize for the National Civic Art Society Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, also for Washington, D.C. This commendation resulted in Cook testifying before Congress.
He is the Founder and President of the National Monuments Foundation and CEO of the Millennium Gate Museum. He is on the boards of directors of the Hearst Castle Preservation Foundation, California, the Fox Theater Inc., the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, the Savannah College of Art and Design, SCAD, and is a past president of Animal Health Trust U.S., Newmarket, England. He is a Founding American Trustee of the Prince of Wales’s Institute of Architecture. He is a Charter Signer of the Congress of New Urbanism. He has lectured at the University of Georgia, University of Virginia, University of Tennessee, Washington and Lee University, The Scott Room at the United States Senate, The Forbes yacht, Highlander, various waters, Hearst Castle, the Kremlin Armory, Tolstoy estate Yasnaya Polyana, Open Society Institute, Soros Foundation, Moscow, National Building Museum, Washington DC, and the Russian Embassy, Washington.
Mr. Cook’s work has been published in Architectural Digest, Time Magazine, The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times of London, Pravda, Izvestia, The New Yorker, The Weekly Standard, Forbes and USA Today.