Collections : [Avery Drawings & Archives]

This collection primarily contains architectural drawings, correspondence, business records, and a small number of photographs related to the projects of Emery Roth & Sons and its subsidiary entities. A large portion of the entities are represented only in the Office Records series and are identified as such. Some projects on which Emery Roth & Sons acted as architect of record are not represented in this collection, most notably the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

The collection is made up of architectural drawings for various projects undertaken by firms/architects such as Skidmore, Owings& Merrill, Warren Gran & Associates, John Carl Warnecke & Associates, Eggers Group, INC, Carson, Lundin & Shaw, and Alfred Easton Poor during the 1960s to the 1980s. Projects represented in this collection include, among others, 1st City National Bank of Houston, Union Carbide & Carbon Corporation, Pepsi Cola HQ Auditorium, Olympia Centre in Chicago, US Steel Building, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., International Arrival Wing at JFK Airport, Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills, CA and Newport Beach, CA, Foreign Trade Bank of Iran Banking Headquarters, Hilton Casino in Atlantic City, 445 Fifth Avenue, John Hancock Tower in Boston, and the Library of Congress James Madison Memorial Building. The majority of the drawings are blue line prints, however, there are some color renderings.

The collection is made up of 2,967 architectural drawings drawn primarily between 1947 and 1998. Jan Hird Pokorny is the primary creator for the majority of the drawings, however, additional creators represented in the collection include Paul P. Cret, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Ferdinand Gottlieb, and Felix Augenfeld. Projects include many alterations to various East Coat residences, Columbia University's Lewisohn Hall, Centenary Junior College in Hackettstown, N.J, Herbert H. Lehman College in the Bronx, and Norwalk Railroad Station renovations among others.

Collection consists of sixty original architectural and furniture drawings for Lever House in New York City, drawn between 1950 and 1952. Most sheet are graphite on paper, with a smaller group of sepia diazo prints with extensive graphite annotations. All sheets were treated by a paper conservator and are now encapsulated in polyester film.

A 1956 proposal drafted by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill for the Union Carbide Building, a historically significant, mid-twentieth century office tower located at 270 Park Avenue, just north of Grand Central Station. The proposal consists of reproductions of plan and elevation drawings and photographs of the Union Carbide model, together with outline specifications, cost estimates, and construction and drawing schedules.

The collection consists of approximately 140 bound albums of photography by Ezra Stoller featuring buildings and interiors designed by Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM) and a small collection of project records. Projects represented include, among others, Albright Knox Art Gallery, American Republic Insurance Company, Banque Lambert, Beineck Library, Chase Manhattan Bank, Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Ford Motor Company, HJ Heinz Research Center, John Hancock Building, Lever House, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, and US Airforce Academy.

This collection primarily includes black and white and color photographic prints of approximately 100 buildings designed by the American architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in locations throughout the United States, circa 1945-1969.