Collections : [Avery Drawings & Archives]

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.

This small collection of correspondence, 17 photographs, and 1 blueprint plan documents the construction and maintenance of the Slade Memorial in Gate of Heaven Cemetery (Mount Pleasant, N.Y.). The papers provide an account of the working relationship between architect and client, as well as detail the many complications encountered when commissioning a built work.

Avery's collection of Spanish children's drawings of the civil war consist of 153 drawings made by children aged 7 to 14 between the years 1936 and 1938. The drawings were willed to the Department of Art History and Archaeology of Columbia University by Martin Vogel, a lawyer, who died on May 20, 1938 at the age of 59. He made several bequests to Columbia University in a will dated March 16, 1938. From the date of this will and of his death, it is likely the drawings he purchased were those exhibited at Lord & Taylor's in February 1938. His name, however, does not appear among the patrons of the exhibition.

In detail. Roof, framing, floors, doors, shutters, plastering, windows, closets, glazing ("best Boston Crown Glass"), built-in dresser in the china closet, papering, painting, fireplaces & cranes, silver-tipped lightning rods.

Specifications document, 6 pages in manuscript, 12 x 8 inches, 1882; Letter to David Whipple offering to sell pier rights, 1878; Letter from Whipple to wife concerning pier, 1884.

Collection consists primarily of White's letterpress books and correspondence, with some related bills, receipts, and other ephemera, 1887-1906, relating to his professional and personal matters. Correspondence, 1907, relates to his estate. Correspondents of note include William A. Boring, Richard Morris Hunt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Louis C. Tiffany, John La Farge, Charles McKim, Frederick Law Olmsted, Whitney Warren, Stefano Bardini, Bessie White, William Merritt Chase, William Robert Ware, Kenyon Cox, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Percy Baker, Cass Gilbert, Childe Hassam, John Singer Sargent, John Wanamaker, Carrère & Hastings, Thomas Dewing, James McNeill Whistler, Lawrence White, Richard White, and other architects, artists, contractors, suppliers, clients, friends, and family members. One letter book contains letters, 1922, by White's son Lawrence Grant White. Also included are White's architectural drawings for houses he built for himself at St. James, Long Island, 1892-1904, and 121 East 21st Street, New York, undated; miscellaneous drawings; and a few architectural drawings by Lawrence Grant White, and drafts of his translation of Dante's DIVINE COMEDY.

Album of photographs taken and purchased by Stanford White on a trip to France in 1878.

This collection primarily contains photographic prints, including contact sheets, depicting Frank Lloyd Wright, Iovanna Lloyd Wright, the apprentices, and buildings at Taliesin West in the 1950s, made by Stuart Weiner. Additionally there is a small group of photographs documenting Wright's presentation of his plans for the Arizona State Capitol in April 1957 and another small group of photographs by Weiner documenting Wright's presentation of that same project to students at Phoenix Union High School several days later. Additionally, there is a small group of photographs by Weiner showing the Raymond Carlson residence in Phoenix, Arizona, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1950. Also of particular note are two original architectural drawings by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Susan Lawrence Dana residence in Springfield, Illinois, showing a gate and an exterior elevation. Lastly, the collection contains a complete copy of the February 1956 Arizona Highways special issue on Frank Lloyd Wright and Taliesin West, and a copy of Wright's self-pubilshed "Oasis: plan for Arizona State Capitol submitted by Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect, February 17, 1957.".

The Significant Interiors Survey (1984-1985) was conducted by The Junior League of the City of New York, Inc. in an effort to document interior spaces of significant buildings in New York City. The collection contains the surveys conducted by The Junior League as well as colored slides of the 14 buildings. The buildings represented include American Telephone & Telegraph Company Building, Carnegie Hill School, Charles Scribner Residence, The Cloisters, Hotel Plaza. The Jewish Museum, Manhattan Country School, Moran's Chelsea, New York Public Library's Main Branch Building, Saks Fifth Avenue, Salmagundi Club, St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church, Sunar Hauserman Showroom, and the Trump Tower. The collection also contains a copy of "Preserving a Fragile Art: A Manual for Surveying Significant Interiors" published by the American Society of Interior Designers and the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission.

This collection contains architectural drawings, and some supplementary archival materials, for buildings primarily designed or altered by Sylvan Bien alone or in partnership with his son, Robert L. Bien. Most of the projects represented in this collection are apartment buildings located in New York City, particularly on the Upper East Side, with some work in surrounding regions and states. In several cases, drawings by the original architect for buildings later altered or studied by Bien are also included in this collection. Lastly, a small group of drawings created by Robert Bien while with Eggers Group is also included.