Collections : [Avery Drawings & Archives]

This collection includes primarily original etchings, engravings, and lithographs, as well as published images from a variety of sources, of individual architectural structures or the built environment. Most of the images are uncolored. The collection is especially strong in images from the United States and England. A significant number of images are plates from Walter Harrison's "A new and universal history, description and survey of the cities of London and Westminister, the borough of Southwark, and their adjacent parts." (London, J. Cooke, 1776). A small portion of the collection depicts decorative arts and interiors. Also included are a few ephemeral items--such as tickets, letterhead, receipts, and bills--that include architectural imagery.

This collection contains primarily landscape and cityscape views primarily taken by professional photographers at international sites during the last quarter of the 19th century.

This collection includes a menu card with signatures of many of the members of the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects and three photographs depicting students in an atelier in Paris associated with the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts. The menu card, dated in Josselyn's hand "Feb. 22, 1889", is from a dinner at the Cafe d'Orsay in Paris, during which preliminary discussions about forming the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects were held. On the verso of the card are the signatures of Thornton Floyd Turner, Austin W. Lord, Louis de Sibourg, T. R. Plummer, William A. Boring, Whitney Warren, Stephen Bonsal, Jr., S. B. P. Trowbridge, Ernest Flagg, John P. Benson, Evans Preston, Juan Guillermo de Lavalle, A. L. Brockway, Joseph H. McGuire, John W. Bemis, Edward L. Tilton, George Cary, and J. Donaldson, Jr. Mr. Josselyn's name also appears on the card, although not in his handwriting. According to correspondence from John Benson held in the Phillips Library in Salem, Massachusetts, the three photographs, taken by Benson, depict the students and instructor of a watercolor class in Paris in early 1889. In the first photograph, Josselyn has identified on the verso the sitters as follows: de Sibourg, McGuire, Josselyn, Lord, Flagg, Brockway, Cary, de Lavalle, Leteurtre, and Saglio. The second and third photographs depict the same men in the same atelier, although they appear to have been taken on a different day than the first image.

The architectural drawings in the collection represent 20 projects dated from the 1900s to the 1920s. Each project was catalogued separately in the online catalog. This finding aid provides a link to each project's associated record. Sheet level description can be found in these project-level records. Each sheet is individually accessioned with numbers ranging from 1000.006.00001 through .00111.

This collection contains materials related to a full range of Blake's personal, professional, and academic lives. The bulk of the collection dates from the 1980s through the early 2000s. His professional and faculty papers document many of his interests, and primarily include published and unpublished lectures and articles. Although Blake delivered his lectures at various architectural schools in the United States and abroad, the specific locations of the lectures are not usually recorded on the documents. In addition, many articles he wrote for publication appear as annotated typescripts. There are also significant papers related to publication of his memoir No Place Like Utopia (Knopf, 1993), including correspondence and some production records. Throughout the professional and faculty papers are also found a large number of reference files relating to modern architecture, art, design, urbanism, technology, and current events, compiled over many decades. The collection also contains correspondence with personal friends, clients, and professional and academic colleagues. There is an especially significant amount of correspondence and clippings related to Patwant Singh, a Sikh writer, commentator, journalist, editor, and publisher, with whom Blake was a close friend. There are also many materials including correspondence, typescripts, and book production records related to Philip Johnson and Paul Rudolph, with whom Blake was also close. Architectural project records include original and reprographic drawings and photographs for 40 residential and institutional designs, located primarily in New York City and the surrounding region. Of particular note are drawings and papers related to Blake's important Pin Wheel House (1954) in Water Mill, New York. In addition, there are drawings related to the American National Exhibition in Moscow (1959). Finally, there is a significant number of drawings, photographs, and correspondence related to the Benjamin Gerson Residence (1999-2003) in Johnsonburg, New Jersey, one of Blake's last architectural projects.

This small collection of Bach's professional papers contains primarily correspondence and papers related to his consulting work for the American Institute of Interior Designers and his correspondence with UNESCO and other organizations regarding laws against design piracy. The collection also contains correspondence, notes, and clippings concerning his research on industrial design topics, including the value of better design in industry, an ideal industrial design school, and specialized museums serving industries. Also included in the collection are typescripts and published copies of some of Bach's writings and lectures.