This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
Sketchbooks, 1895-1903; sketches, 1894-1896, made while Magonigle was travelling in Europe on Rotch Travelling Scholarship; graphic designs, 1902-1919; rendered competition drawings for government buildings, circa 1907-1920, and memorial structures, circa 1910-1930; photographs of Magonigle's architectural drawings, memorial structures, monuments, and other architectural work, much of it located in New York City, circa 1900s-1930s. Among projects represented in the collection are the Gates Avenue Courthouse, Brooklyn, N.Y.; the Firemen's Memorial, the Robert Fulller Memorial, and the National Watergate Memorial in New York City's Riverside Park; the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Mo.; the Isaac Guggenheim house in Port Washington, N.Y.; numerous additions and alterations for the Franklin Murphy mansion in Mendham, N.J.; and the United States Embassy compound in Tokyo, Japan. Also, drawings by other architects including Hugh Ferriss, Thomas Rogers Kimball, Hubert George Ripley, and I.W. Taber, that were presented to Magonigle. Also included are drawings, circa 1910s-1940s, by Magonigle's wife, painter and designer Edith Marion Day; photographs of Day and Magonigle; manuscripts of lectures, literary works, and other writings by Magonigle; and ephemera.
Series I: Architectural Drawings
This series includes 2,184 architectural drawings including renderings, plans, elevations, sections and details for approximately 60 projects. The dates of the project drawings span from 1902 to 1931. 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 cataloged with numbers ranging from NYDA.1939.001.00001 through .02357. The projects are listed in this finding aid in loose chronological order. Undated drawings are listed last in this series.
Series II: Student and travel drawings
Series II: Student and travel drawings consists of 173 drawings and sketches completed by Magnonigle was on a Rotch Traveling Fellowship in Europe during the years 1894-1896. The travel sketches vary from finished pencil, charcoal or watercolor pictures to quick short-hand notes, and also an series of measured drawings, many of which were widely exhibited and published.
This collection is available for use by appointment in the Department of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University. For further information, please email avery-drawings@library.columbia.edu.
Harold Van Buren Magonigle architectural drawings and papers. Dept. of Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.
Harold Van Buren Magonigle papers at Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library.
Edith Magonigle drawings, Avery Drawings & Archives, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University.
Source of acquisition--Various gifts. Accession number--1000.028, 1939.001, 1996.018.
Columbia University Libraries, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Drawings for the collection were cataloged in 1978 during Project AVIADOR (Avery Videodisc Index of Architectural Drawings on RYAN). The collection was re-inventoried by Paul Guidos (Student Assistant) in 2022. Shelley Hayreh (Archivist & Collection Manager) edited and published the finding aid for the collection in 2022.
Harold Van Buren Magonigle was born in Bergen Heights, New Jersey on October 17, 1867. His father John Henry was, for a time, the business manager of actor Edwin Booth. His mother, Katherine Devlin, was the sister of Booth's wife. By the age of 13, Magonigle had entered the work force, starting with a student draftsman position at the architecture firm of Vaux and Radford. In 1882, Magonigle left for a position in the offices of Charles C. Haight, staying five years. In 1887, he joined the offices of McKim, Mead and White and worked there until a move to Boston in 1892, where he worked for the firm Rotch and Tilden. In 1894, Magonigle won the Rotch Travelling Fellowship and traveled throughout England, France, Greece and Italy for the next two years.
After the completion of the fellowship, he returned to the offices of McKim, Mead and White. Over the next few years, he moved around working briefly as a partner of Evarts Tracy, then head draftsman with Schickel and Ditmars, followed by a short association with H.W. Wilkinson. Around 1902, Magonigle went into private practice, where he remained for the rest of his career.
Magonigle died on August 20th, 1935 following a stroke suffered while on vacation visiting friends in Vergennes, Vermont. Edith Magonigle donated his drawings to Avery Library in 1939.
The subject headings listed below are found in this collection. Links below allow searches for other collections at Columbia University, through CLIO, the catalog for Columbia University Libraries, and through ArchiveGRID, a catalog that allows users to search the holdings of multiple research libraries and archives.
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