Collections : [Avery Drawings & Archives]

This collection primarily contains architectural drawings, photographs, business records and reference materials related to the projects and designs of architectural and engineering firm Abbott, Merkt and Company. A subsidiary portion of the collection includes drawings, photographs and papers related to the life and career of Richard H. Tatlow, III, president of Abbott Merkt, as well as the firms and agencies for which he also worked.

This large collection documents in great detail the architectural projects of Abraham Geller and his colleagues throughout the United States and abroad, spanning the 1940s through the 1990s. Types of projects represented include retirement homes, recreational facilities, medical centers, private residences and prototype dwellings for large residential developments, urban renewal projects, and offices.

This collection contains architectural drawings, photographs, business records and reference materials related to the projects and designs of Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and his successor firm, Mayers, Murray & Philips, primarily in the New York City region. A large portion of the collection consists of personal and professional correspondence to and from Goodhue from the early 1900s until his death in 1926. Relatively few architectural drawings from his professional practice survive.

Drawings, prints, watercolors, photographs, and reproductions, largely undated (late 19th- through the 20th century) of architectural and other subjects by Harriman, with some by others including Perry Coke Smith, Howard J. Custer, and unidentified artists and architects. Of note is an undated unidentified photograph of late 19th- or early 20th-century art or architecture students.

This collection documents the life and career of Edgar Allen Tafel: New York architect, Frank Lloyd Wright historian, and one of the original apprentices of the Taliesin Fellowship from 1932. The collection primarily documents Tafel's professional activities and his later independent architectural career which was most prominent from 1965-1985. The collection is made up of nine series: Personal Papers, Correspondence, Writings, Professional Papers, Office Records, Project Records, Photographs and Slides, Audio-Visual Material, and Printed Material.

The collection includes over 140,000 pages of correspondence, which serves as a core resource for understanding Wright's personal and professional activities, relationships, and ideas. The correspondence also includes project records such as specifications, contracts, supply orders, invoices and receipts. Letters from the 1880s through the 1920s accounts for only 2% of the total correspondence in the collection (approximately 2,000 documents). The bulk of the correspondence is from the 1930s until Wright's death in 1959.