Avery Library’s Drawings & Archives department collects drawings, photographs, and architectural records documenting architecture and design practices. Our collections focus largely on American and New York City architecture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Douglas Putnam Haskellan (1899-1979) was an American writer, architecture critic and magazine editor. This collection contains correspondence, memos, articles, speeches, lectures, transcripts, clippings, notes, printed matter, photographs, audiotapes, and memorabilia mainly relating to Douglas Haskell's editorship at Architectural Forum and his professional activities. The collection includes items dating from 1866 to 1979, with the majority of materials dating from the period of 1949 to 1964.
The Parks Council (renamed in 2002 as New Yorkers for Parks) is a non-profit advocacy organization that promotes the development, use, and maintenance of parks, playgrounds, community gardens, and open space in New York City. This collection includes office papers, correspondence, grant applications, reports, exhibitions materials, photographs, printed materials, maps, and scrapbooks related to the work and interests of the Parks Council in New York City from the 1920s through the 1970s.
The Wallace K. Harrison architectural drawings and papers consists of architectural drawings, photographs, correspondence, notes, speeches, manuscripts, press releases, clippings, memoranda, printed material, job lists, curriculam vitae, contracts, articles, and other material related to Harrison's architectural projects. The collection also contains a significant amount of material regarding Harrison's position as director of the Office of Inter-American Affairs, director of planning of the United Nations Headquarters and biographical material. Approximately a third of the collection is made up of photographs. Photographers include Wendy Barrows, Shirley Burden, George Cserna, Y[uzo] Nagata, and Ezra Stoller, among many others. There is also a collection of 148 art books that belonged to Harrison referred to as his "doodle books." A list of these books with brief descriptions of where Harrison drew in them is contained in the finding aid. Projects documented include Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Opera House, Rockefeller Center, Albany Mall (Empire State Plaza), United Nations, X City, ALCOA building, Corning Glass building, First Presbyterian Church, La Guardia Airport, Socony-Mobil building, Battery Park City, Radio City Music Hall, New York World's Fair (1939 and 1964), Institute for Advanced Study, National Academy of Science, Pahlavi National Library Competition, Oberlin College's Hall Auditorium, Pershing Memorial, Rockefeller University, Hopkins Center, The Anchorage, Avila Hotel, and numerous other buildings and residences.
