Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna William of Sens was a 12th-century French architect, supposed to have been born at Sens, France. He died at Canterbury on 11 August 1180. He is referred to in September 1174 as having been the architect who undertook the task of rebuilding the choir of Canterbury cathedral, originally erected by Conrad, the prior of the monastery, and destroyed by fire in that year. William had supposedly worked upon the first major Gothic religious building, the Sens Cathedral near Paris and as such was brought in for his skills in the modern, lighter method of building.