The Amazonia 2000 Collection
Julia Allen Field's activities as a planner, environmental advocate,
and writer found vital expression in the organization which she founded,
AMAZONIA 2000. Focused on a Colombian model, AMAZONIA 2000, in its founder's
words, was "a transcendental vision ... the creation of a multidisciplinary
planning team, bringing all fields of human knowledge to bear in consideration
of this vast rain forest." The AMAZONIA 2000 Collection includes research
and correspondence files, printed material, and photographs, and reflects
the founder's and the organization's activities in Colombia and on a
global basis.
Gift of Julia Allen Field
Edward Larrabee Barnes graduated from the GSD in 1942, and his subsequent
architectural projects-ranging from residences to museums to corporate
structures-have been characterized by simplicity, geometrical purity,
and sensitivity to site. The Barnes Collection includes material selected
by the architect himself: drawings, plans, photographs, models, and
related promotional material. Among the projects represented are the
Haystack Mountain School of Arts and Crafts in Maine (1959-1961), the SUNY Purchase Master Plan (1966-1977), the Walker Art Center (1966-1971, 1984), the Asia Society Gallery (1981), and the Dallas Museum of Art (1983-1984, 1993) among many others. A number of private homes are also included: Reid House (1948), Osborn House (1949-1950), OConnell House (1951), Buck House (1952), Weiner House (1952), Barnes House (1952), Marsters House (1955), Miller House (1957), Straus House (1958), and Rockefeller House (1965).
Gift of Edward Larrabee Barnes 1993, and Barnes Family 2005
Jessie Tarbox Beals, 1870-1942
Beals Photograph Collection
Jessie Tarbox Beals is considered to be among the first women professional
photojournalists; her work appeared in major newspapers and magazines
throughout the first decades of the century. The Beals Collection includes
some three thousand prints of residences and gardens, most dating from
the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to a substantial number of East Coast
locations, Beal's archive includes a significant number of sites in
the chicago area and Southern California. These photographs provide
invaluable period documentation of domestic architecture, interior decoration,
and garden design.
Gift of Nanette Tarbox Beals Brainerd, 1982.
[A complementary collection of manuscript material and news photographs
is held by Schlesinger Library's History of Women in America].
Drawings and Watercolors of Architecture, 1928-1932
Richard Marsh Bennett was a Harvard-educated architect (S.B. 1928,
M.Arch. 1931) who, in addition to a lengthy career (1947-1965) in practice
with the Chicago firm of Loeb, Schlossman & Bennett, taught at Yale
(1940-1943), and served as a Senior Fellow in Architecture (1975-1979)
and as a Senior Fellow in design (1979-1984) at the the GSD. The collection
includes watercolor drawings produced as a Julia Amory Appleton Travelling
Fellow, as well as photographs and drawings made during earlier European
trips.
Gift of Richard M. Bennett, 1980, 1983
The Walter Bogner Collection
Educated in his native Austria and at Harvard's School of Architecture,
Bogner maintained a professional practice and was also active as an
educator and writer. The bulk of the Bogner Collection materials are
related to his role as a design consultant to the City of San Francisco
Zoning Project in the mid 1960s. There is also material related to Bogner's
planning activities in Boston and research files related to his teaching
at the GSD.
Gift of Walter F. Bogner
A selection of materials (drawings, plans, photographs, job files and
clippings) related to significant projects designed by John S. Bolles
(MArch '32). Among the projects included are Las Vegas' Caesar's Palace,
San Francisco's Candlestick Park, the IBM 007 Building, Santa Rosa Plaza,
and a broad range of industrial, commercial and site planning commissions
on the West Coast.
Gift of Jane Bolles Grimm, John T. Bolles, and Peter P. Bolles, 1997.
The collection includes research files and correspondence exchanged
between Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994), William Howard Adams, and the
Museum of Modern Art in New York during 1990-1991 for the preparation
of the exhibition Roberto Burle Marx: The Unnatural Art of the Garden,
held at MoMA in 1991 and curated by Adams. Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994)
is recognized as Brazil's most influential landscape architect and has
been referred to as the "creator of the modern garden." He
designed approximately 3000 works during his 62-year career, of which
only a fraction have been realized, and he collaborated with architects
such as Oscar Niemeyer, Lucio Costa, Richard Neutra and Le Corbusier.
Burle Marx is also recognized for his dicovery of some thirteen plants
that bear his name, and his ecologically informed landscapes. A noted
painter, botanist, and designer, his work has been extensively covered
in conferences, publications, and exhibitions. He has been awarded numerous
prizes worldwide, in recognition for his landscape design. The collection
also includes clippings and writings by and about Bule Marx, and some
350 slides documenting his work.
Gift of William Howard Adams.
A graduate of Emory and Columbia Universities Grady Clay was trained as a journalist, joining the staff of the Louisville Courier-Journal in 1939. He has written and lectured on environmental affairs, the built and natural landscape, and has held a number of prestigious positions, including the presidency of the National Association of Real Estate Editors. He is a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, a Guggenheim Fellow, and Research Associate of the Harvard-MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies. He has also served as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Planning Officials and as a consultant on various federal advisory committees. He is the author of numerous works, including Close-Up: How to Read the American City and Landscapes for Living and was the editor of the influential journal, Landscape Architecture.
The collection includes correspondence, off-prints, research files and other material related to Landscape Architecture Quarterly and Landscape Architecture and to professional associations and activities in the fields of design, landscape architecture and environmental studies.
Gift of Grady E. Clay, 2003
The Cluny Collection includes a broad range of materials related to
Professor Kenneth Conant's decades of research at the Burgundian abbey
at Cluny. The collection includes a substantial portion of Professor
Conant's library, hundreds of measured drawings (utilized in the reconstruction
project), and photographs (largely of sculptural detail), as well as
correspondence and manuscript material. These substantial holdings,
which constitute, essentially, a scholar's working library, are supplemented
by additional material relating to Monte Cassino and sites in Byzantium.
Kenneth Conant was as member or the Harvard University faculty and the
Graduate School of Design throughout his professional life.
Gift of Professor and Mrs. Kenneth Conant, 1972-1983
Papers of Arthur C. Comey, 1904-1950
Educated at Harvard (A.B. 1907), comey developed a successful career
as a city planner and landscape arcitect; he also served on the faculties
of both the School of Landscape Architecture and the Department of Regional
Planning. The collection includes research files, survey and maps, as
well as planning reports (largely written by Comey himself).
The Bequest of Arthur Coleman Comey
The George Collins Collection on Linear City Planning includes research
files comprised of correspondence, reference material, clippings, manuscripts,
typescripts, photographs and other miscellaneous files assembled and
maintained by architectural historian George Roseborough Collins on
linear city planning, and the Ciudad Lineal of Madrid by Arturo Soria
y Mata (1844-1920). Soria y Mata acknowledged by some authors as the
inventor of modern linear planning, was clearly one of its most enthusiast
advocates in late nineteenth century Spain. During the 1880's he elaborated
his theory through a series of articles in the newspaper El Progreso,
and during the 1890's he administered the pilot project of the Ciudad
Lineal of Madrid. The original marketing of the Ciudad Lineal was announced
in 1892 in a brochure Ferrocarril-Tranvía de Circunvalación
de Madrid, where the sale of shares of the Compañía Madrileña
de Urbanización that would carry out the plan was announced.
The collection also includes research files on Roadtown, a version of
linear city planning imagined by Edgar Chambless and published in
1910 as a monograph.
Gift of Christiane Crasemann Collins, 2001
The founding of the Congrès Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne
(CIAM) in 1928 has been cited as the beginning of the "academic" phase
of modern architecture. The organization and its membership were extraordinarily
influential in the development of contemporary architectural and urban
planning theory; CIAM also served as a worldwide mode of communication
among progressive architects. Drawn largely from the files of Josep
Lluis Sert (who served for many years as the organization's President),
the CIAM Collection includes manuscript material, photographs, and ephemera
related to the organization's congresses, publications, and membership.
Gifts of Josep Lluis Sert, 1981, and Jaqueline Tyrwhitt,
1982
The home and clinic of Dr. Pedro Curutchet in La Plata, Argentina,
with Harvard's Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, constitute the
only built works by Le Corbusier in the Western Hemisphere. Dr. Curutchet,
who has written extensively on the design of surgical instruments and
the techniques of aximanual surgery, commissioned the project in 1949.
The Curutchet Collection includes correspondence files, original drawings
and construction documents, as well as slides and photographs.
Gift of Dr. Pedro Curutchet, 1978; additional material donated
by Professor Jorge Silvetti, 1979
Architectural Drawings of Arland A. Dirlam, 1929-1967
Arland Dirlam, educated a Tufts University (B.S. 1926) and harvard
(M.Arch. 1929) established his first architectural practice in Malden,
MA, in 1932. Dirlam specialized in the design of churches, and more
than 1,000 projects, including renovations, are credited to him toegether
with other public buildings and private residences. The Dirlam Collection
includes some 400 drawings related to 14 projects (churches and public
buildings) on the East Coast, together with his thesis project.
Gift of Mrs. Grace Dirlam, 1982
[A larger, complementary collection of Dirlam drawings is housed
at the library of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities]
The Papers of Charles Eliot
Educated at Harvard, Charles Eliot was among the most eminent landscape
designers of his time. Best known for his instrumental role in developing
the Boston Metropolitan Park system, Eliot both independently and as
a partner in the Olmsted firm, was also deeply sensitive to the issue
of landscape conservation. The Charles Eliot Collections includes printed
books and periodicals from his professional library, manuscript material,
sketches, correspondence, and ephemera. The Eliot Collection also includes
some 500 photographs assembled by Eliot of sites and structures in the
United States and Europe.
Gifts of Mary Pitkin Eliot, 1921; Charles W. Eliot, 1923; and Charles
W. Eliot II, 1940
The Papers of Charles William Eliot II
Charles William Eliot's professional life included activity as a landscape
architect, a city planner, educator, conservationist, and public servant.
Graduating from Harvard College in 1920, he received an MLA in 1923
from the Department of Landscape Architecture, worked as a planner and
landscape architect, and held several important positions during the
New Deal; most notably as the Director of the National Resources Planning
Board in the years 1939-1943. Eliot held the Charles Eliot Professorship
in Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning (named for his distinguished
uncle; cf. the preceding entry) at the GSD, 1955-1959 and was Professor
City and Regional Planning, 1959-1967. Throughout his life he was active
in a variety of public service organizations and advocacy groups, including
the Trustees of Reservations.
Professor Eliot's original gift included papers pertaining to the National
Resources Planning Board and its predecessor agencies, as well as a
substantial collection of reports made to the Board. (These papers have
been published on microfilm by the Microfilming Corporation of America).
In 1987, Eliot added to the archive a gift of material documenting-in
formats ranging from manuscript (his 1927 plan) to a 1986 videotape-his
long-time professional and personal involvment in planning at Mt. Desert
Island and the development of Acadia National Park. Subsequently, materials
related to his planning projects and post-war activities were also presented
to the library.
Gift of Charles W. Eliot, 1983; 1987-1992
The Robin Evans Collection
Robin Evans was educated at the Architectural Association (A.A. Diploma
1969) and received a PhD in history from the University of Essex. He
taught extensively in England and the United States, and held an appointment
as Lecturer in Architecture at the GSD at the time of his death. The
Evans Collection includes a substantial archive of material-drawings,
notes, graphic material, and annotated texts-assembled in the course
of his research for the book posthumously published as The Projective
Cast.
Gift of Mrs. Robin Evans, 1995
Jorge Ferrari Hardoy was an Argentinean architect who, in addition
to maintaining an architectural practice, was deeply involved in urban
planning and design and in the regional and international activities
of progressive architectural organizations. His work as a furniture
designer is perhaps best known through the BKF: the ubiquitious "butterfly
chair."
The Ferrari Hardoy Archive includes drawings, plans, correspondence,
and research materials related to his work as an architect, designer,
planner, and analyst. There are substantial files related to CIAM and
AUSTRAL. One of the most significant series in the collection is related
to the Buenos Aires Plan; Ferrari Hardoy worked with Le Corbusier in
its development and wrote extensively on the Plan Director para Buenos
Aires in professional publications.
Gift of the Ferrari Hardoy Family, 1995
The George B. Ford Collection, 1896-ca.1930
George B. Ford was educated at Harvard College (A.B. 1899), acquired
additonal degrees at MIT (S.B. 1900, M.S. 1901), and also studied at
the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He joined the New York firm of George S. Post
in 1907 and for the next decade worked as an architect, consulting engineer,
and planning consultant on a broad range of projects. In 1917 he was
appointed Deputy Commissioner of the American Red Cross in France and
was an influential figure in the reconstruction effort in post-World
War I France; he was concurrently active in planning efforts and professional
organizations in the United States and internationally. During the 1920s
Ford was consultant to th Russell Sage Foundation in its development
of the Regional Plan of New York, served as an advisor to numerous municipal
and regional governing bodies and was the founder of the journal City
Planning. Ford was the author of hundreds of professional reports,
as well as several books, including Out of the Ruins (1919) and
Urbanisme en Pratique (1920).
The Ford Collection includes drawings, plans, substantial correspondence
files, numerous reports and studies (in both preliminary and final formats),
and a particularly significant collection of photographs, manuscript
materials, clippings, and ephemera relating to war damage and reconstruction
in eastern France. A substantial portion of the Ford Collection was
orginally part of the Harriet B. Ford Collection at Smith College. Theses
materials were transferred to the GSD through the courtesy of the Sophia
Smith Collection, Smith College Library.
Gift of Mrs. Harriet B. Ford, 1990
The Clarence Fowler Collection
Clarence Fowler, after an apprenticeship in th office of H. Langford
Warren, enrolled in Harvard's School of Landscape Architecture in 1911.
Leaving the School after his first year, he joined the New York office
of Ferruccio Vitale and subsequently established his own practice, specializing
in the design of suburban and country place gardens in the New York
and New Jersey area.
The Fowler Collection consists of about 250 photographs of 28 private
gardens designed by Fowler in the 1920s and 1930s. The sites have all
been identified and include photographs by a number of notable landscape
photographers; among the Samuel Gottscho.
A graduate of the GSD (MArch'48), Ulrich Franzen has made distinguished
contributions to architecture, urban design and the theoretical and
critical literature of design. His architectural projects include private
residences, educational structures (notably projects at Cornell University
(MVR Hall, the Growth Chamber Laboratories and Agronomy Building), commercial
and industrial commissions (The Philip Morris Research Center and Headquarters),
and cultural sites ranging from Houston's Alley Theater to the Harlem
School of the Arts. Among numerous honors, Ulrich Franzen has received
the Louis Sullivan Award of the AIA, the Thomas Jefferson Award of the
University of Virginia, and a D.H.L. from Williams College.The Franzen
archive includes sketchbooks, drawings, plans, photographs, offprints
and films, as well as material related to his furniture and industrial
design.
Gift of Ulrich Franzen, 2000
Architectural Drawings, 1891-1897
Arthur F. Gray, a mill architect and civil engineer, and Frank M. Blaisdell, a landscape architect and civil engineer, were in practice together in Boston at the turn of the 20th century. The collection consists of 53 sets of drawings, the majority of public buildings or estates; formats include original drawings on paper and tracing cloth as well as blueprints.
Measured Drawings Collection, 1913-1939ca.
The collection includes some 50 sets of drawings and renderings, the majority of which are envois, or prize drawings. These drawings, many of which depict European villas and gardens, were generated by the holders of travelling fellowships.
Scrapbooks of Plant Materials, 1910-1920
Nine scrapbooks containing magazine clippings and photographs of plant materials, arranged alphabetically by their Latin (botanical) nomenclature.
The Papers of Lloyd M. Hendrick
Lloyd Hendrick was educated at Harvard (A.B. 1912, M.Arch. 1915) and
was awarded the Julia Amory Appleton Travelling Fellowship in 1915.
The collection is comprised of sketchbooks of measured drawings, snapshots
of European architectural landmarks, and research files related to,
and the text of an unpublished essay on the Colosseum.
Gift of Lloyd M. Hendrick, Jr., 1979
Born in Vienna, Franziska Porges emigrated with her family to the United States, graduating from Smith College in 1940 and was among the first women to receive a masters degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1944. She, with her husband James Hosken, founded a furniture design studio and subsequently became a professional journalist and photographer; she was also the author of The Language of Cities (1968) and The Function of Cities (1972).
In the 1970s her interests turned more intensively to social activism, with particular focus on womens health in the developing world. She was the founder of the Womens International Network and an organizer of the Human Rights Health Action Network. Her illustrated Childbirth Picture Book was published in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Somali and has been distributed in thousands of copies throughout the world for the use of health care educators.
The Hosken Collection includes material related to the many facets of her professional life: drawings and memorabilia related to her years at the GSD; drawings, photographs and ephemera related to her furniture and jewelry design, research files, off-prints and photographs drawn from her architectural and urban design journalism and a substantial file of texts and photographs which formed the basis of her 1974 book, The Kathmandu Valley Towns.
Gift of Franziska Porges Hosken and John Hosken, 2003-2006.
[Additional materials related to Franziska Porges Hosken can be found at Harvards Schlesinger Library, the Northwestern University Library and The Technical Reference Center of Texas A&M University].
Papers of Reginald R. Isaacs
Educator and city planner, Isaacs was educated at the University of
Minnesota (B.Arch 1935) and Harvard (M.Arch. 1939). Active in Massachusetts,
Illinous, and the District of Columbia as a planner, he held several
professorships at the Graduate School of Design in the Departments of
City and Regional Planning.
The Isaacs archive includes reports, correspondence, planning materials,
and ephemera related to two projects: the Syracuse-Onondaga County (NY)
Postwar Planning Projects and the Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago.
Gifts of Reginald R. Isaacs and The Michael Reese Hospital
Newspaper clippings and ephemera related to the planning and implementation
of the tercentenary exposition, whose site was designed by Warren H.
Manning.
Collection assembled and donated by Warren H. Manning
Reports on Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela, 1960-1965
The Joint Center for Urban Studies, a research organization established
by Harvard and MIT in 1959 to stimulate research in urban and regional
studies, issued the unpublished reports and development plan included
in this collection. The Center's analysis of the Guayana region was
focused on a variety of political, economic, and planning issues.
Gift of the Joint Center for Urban Studies
[Related material may be consulted in the Ciudad Guayana files of
the Wilhelm V.Von Moltke Collection and at the Rotch Library of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.]
Kennard was a graduate of Harvard College (A.B. 1888) and practiced
as a landscape architect in Boston. He was elected a Fellow of the American
Society of Landscape Architects in 1905. The Kennard Collection includes
several hundred drawings, largely ink on linen.
Gift of Lisa Broderick, 1982.
The Dan Kiley Archive
In a practice representing more than fifty years of professional activity,
Dan Kiley has designed hundreds of public and private gardens and parks,
as well as corporate grounds, recreational centers, and master plans.
In these projects he has, through his sophisticated interpretations
of classical geometry, produced work deeply sensitive to nature, site,
structure, and to the tenets of Modernist design.
The Dan Kiley Archive includes drawings and plans related to some 600
Kiley projects, including perhaps his best-known private commission,
the Miller Garden (1953), as well as drawings for the United States
Air Force Academy, the Ford Foundation, Dulles Airport, the Henry Moore
Sculpture Garden, and the Dalle Centrale of La Défense.
Gift of Dan Kiley, 1995.
Sketchbooks of Jacob F. Krokyn
A Boston-based architect, Krokyn attended the Harvard School of Architecture during the years 1911-1913. The six sketchbooks contain drawings in pencil and chalk, made by Krokyn while travelling in Europe.
The Le Corbusier Research Collection was established by Dean Josep
Lluis Sert in 1972. The Collection consists primarily of printed materials
by and about Le Corbusier, supplemented by graphic materials, drawings
(in a variety of formats), and ephemera. The book collection includes
some 700 titles; the Library's Visual Resource Department counts in
its holdings hundreds of related slides. The Le Corbusier Research Collection
is the focus of on-going acquisition and collection development. The
Loeb Library's Special Collections also include an individual Le Corbusier
project file; cf. The Curutchet Collection entry.
Gifts of Josep Lluis Sert, the Fondation Le Corbusier, other interested
donors, and dedicated Loeb Library Funds
[Additional materials by and related to Le Corbusier can be found
in the Josep Lluis Sert Collection and the CIAM Collection, as well
as in the collections of the University Archives and the Carpenter Center
for the Visual Arts.]
Following the notion of establishing a benchmark as had been the Athens Charter, the educators and practitioners involved during December 1977 in the Charter of Machu Picchu intended, as expressed in the Charter itself, to foster public debate and involvement in the policies and actions of governments that can and should be applied to improve the quality of human settlements throughout the world. The Machu Picchu Papers contain documentation related to the Charter of Machu Picchu, drafts and final version in English and Spanish, its repercussions in journals and newspapers at the time, some correspondence among participating members, and other miscellaneous material of congresses and meetings held thereafter.
Gift of Christiane Crasemann Collins, 2001
Warren Manning Collection, 1907ca.-1910
Warren H. Manning joined the Olmsted firm as a consultant in horticulture;
he later became an assistant in design at the Olmsted office. In 1896
he opened his own practice, which included projects ranging from large-scale
civic, campus, and park planning to more modest private gardens. The
Manning Collection includes preliminary and presentation drawings, together
with material assembled for his own professional research files; notably
those relate to the planning of the 1907 Jamestown Tercentenary Exposition
grounds.
Gift of Warren H. Manning, ca.1934.
[The Loeb Library's Special Collections also include a separate collection,
cf. The Jamestown Collection entry, of printed items and ephemera related
to the Jamestown Exposition, assembled by Manning. There are aditional
collections of primary research materials located in the Manning Collections
of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell Library and of Iowa State
University]
The McFadden Collection consists largely of print and visual materials
related to American gardens influenced by Asian traditions in landscape
design. These materials were assembled by Dorothy Loa McFadden, author
of Oriental Gardens in America: A Visitor's Guide.
Gift of Dorothy Loa McFadden, 1983
Thirty-five vintage photographs of the Boston subway system excavation
and construction undertaken by the Metropolitan Contracting Company
in 1896.
Gift of Henry H. Carter, 1917
Correspondence, organizational files, photographs and ephemera related to an event honoring Lewis Mumford, recipient of the 1979-1980 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Award.
Gift of Jerold Kayden, 1998.
The Samuel Newsom Collection
Samuel Newsom, a California landscape designer, travelled to Japan
in 1934 to study Japanese landscape design. He remained for five years,
under the sponsorship of the Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, mapping and photographing
traditional gardens, public and private, in Kyoto and Tokyo. Newsom's
first book, Japanese Garden Construction (1937) was published
in Tokyo and formalizes the research he had conducted.
The Newsom Collection includes manuscript material, printed items and
ephemera, hundreds of photographs and snapshots, and, most importantly,
dozens of notebooks, which include both meticulously detailed measured
drawings, as well as impressionistic sketches of gardens and parks.
John Charles Olmsted was sequentially the nephew, stepson, and partner
of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., a distinguished landscape designer and
an influential figure in the development of the landscape design profession
and of the American Society of Landscape Architects. Joining the senior
Olmsted in practice in the late 1870s, he benefited from a long apprenticeship,
and essentially directed the firm until joined by his step-brother Frederick
Law Olmsted, Jr., and Charles Eliot in the 1890s. The volume and quality
of his contribution to the Olmsted firm's projected designs, realized
works, and reputation is incalculable.
The John Charles Olmsted Collection includes some 5,000 letters exchanged
with his wife Sophia White Olmsted, during the years 1898-1920. During
this period John C. Olmsted travelled extensively on the firm's behalf,
spending lenghty periods in residence in the Pacific Northwest, California,
the Midwest, and the South. There are also correspondence files with
professional colleagues (including his partners), some material directly
related to firm business or professional associations, as well as family
papers, memorabilia, and photographs.
Gift of Carolyn Olmsted, 1977
A substantial collection of materials related to the personal life
and professional practice of landscape architect William L. Phillips
was acquired in 1977. Included are project files, photographs, clippings
and ephemera, as well as research files assembled by Phillip's biographer
Faith R. Jackson.
Gift of Juliette Phillips Coyle and Faith Reyher Jackson, 1977
W.L. Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection consists of correspondence exchanged between
two landscape architects-teacher and student-William Lyman Phillips
(Harvard University B.A. 1908, M.L.A. 1910) and Prentiss French (Harvard
University M.L.A. 1921). Perhaps best known as the designer of Florida's
Fairchild Tropical Garden, Phillips' letters discuss both professional
and personal matters.
Gift of Julia Allen Field, 1980
The Helen Spaulding Phipps Collection
A professional landscape designer and lecturer, Phipps received a degree
in landscape architecture from Cornell University and worked with Beatrix
Farrand and for publications including House Beautiful and House
and Garden. Her private practice was based primarily in Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and New York.
The bulk of the Phipps Collection consists of materials assembled during
an extensive tour of European villas and gardens in 1933. Included are
printed items, a travel diary, annotated guidebooks, and, most importantly,
some 450 photographs and snapshots of sites in France, Italy, and Spain.
Gift of Pollee P. Hruby and Richard Row, 1988
The Papers of John Pym
Educated at Eton, Trinity College Cambridge, and subsequently a RIBA
associate and fellow, John Pym joined the firm of W.R. Davidge in 1946,
broadening his architectural practice to include land-use and town planning
projects. As a response to Abercrombie's Greater London Plan (1944),
county councils in the London area recruited consultants to implement
its recommendations and Pym oversaw the planmaking and development control
functions focused on a large part of metropolitan Surrey. His chief
architectural work after the war was the prolonged planning and execution
of the "Town Map" of Catterick Camp, a garrison in Yorkshire.
The Pym Collection includes 46 files of drawings, plans, and technical
diagrams for both architectural and planning projects, supplemented
by correspondence, research files,and memorabilia.
Gift of John N. Pym, 1994
Eleanor Raymond was born in Cambridge, MA, and following her graduation
from Wellesley College, enrolled in the Cambridge School of Architecture
and Landscape Architecture (whose faculty was largely drawn from the
faculty of Harvard's School of Architecture). Upon her graduation in
1919, Raymond opened an office in partnership with Henry Atherton Frost:
the beginning of a professional career that was to span some sixty years
of practice. Raymond's prime interest was in residential housing: she
designed one of the first International Style houses in the United States
in 1931, was deeply interested in innovative materials and building
systems (she designed a Plywood House in 1940 and in 1948, the "Sun
House," one of the first successful solar-heated buildings in the Northeast).
Eleanor Raymond was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects
in 1961.
The Eleanor Raymond Collection includes documentation of some 300 architectural
projects, ranging from drawings to related correspondence, as well as
project photographs, personal papers, snapshots, and memorabilia. Also
included are diaries kept by architectural journalist and writer, Ethel
Power, Raymond's long-time companion and professional colleague.
Gift of Eleanor Raymond, 1986
The Loeb Library's Richardson holdings include several hundred printed
works from the architect's professional library, as well as 53 albums
of photographs assembled by him. The photographs (whose use as a visual
reference collection on the Richardson office is well-documented) include
views of Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance architecture in France,
Italy, and Spain, together with photographs of sculptural detail, ironwork
and woodwork. Included are the products of established studios, of anonymous
photographers, and studies by notable contemporary photographers, among
them Baldus and Fenton.
Gift of Henry Richardson Shepley, 1942
Journalist, editor, and city planner, Charles Mulford Robinson was
an eminent figure in the American city planning movment at the turn
of the century, whose views (particularly his interest in the aesthetic
character of urban development) are summarized in the 1901 edition of
his The Improvement of Towns and Cities.
The Robinson Collection includes monographs and periodicals from Robinson's
professional library, as well as a substantial number of pamphlets,
printed ephemera, and clippings.
Gift of Eliza T.E.P. Robinson
Throughout Eduard Sekler's distinguished teaching career at both the
Graduate School of Design and the Carpenter Center for Visual Arts,
his students prepared collaborative reports focused largely on 19th
and early 20th century buildings in the Boston area.
The Sekler Collection of Student Reports includes several hundred of these reports, in some cases accompanied by large-scale drawings, which document the history and contemporary condition of scores of both well-known and neglected structures. The reports characteristically include drawings and plans, photographs, reproductions of related manuscript or ephemeral material, and an historical narrative.
Josep Lluis Sert received a degree in architecture in
1929 from the Escuela Superior de Arquitectura in Barcelona; in the
subseequent decade he was among the leading young Spanish architects,
active as well in the GATPAC movement and CIAM. He gained an international
reputation with his design for the Spanish Pavilion erected at the 1937
Paris Exposition. Sert emigrated to the United States in 1939 and from
1941 to 1958 was a partner in Town Planning Associates, a design firm
specializing in both architectural and urban design projects, with a
particular focus on Latin America. In 1955, Sert opened his own design
firm, Sert, Jackson & Associates, in Cambridge, MA; his work ranged
from private residences to museums to large-scale educational and commercial
projects.
Sert's academic career began with a year's appointment as a professor
of city planning at Yale; in 1953, at the recommendation of Walter Gropius,
he was named Dean of the Graduate School of Design, with a complementary
appointment as Chairman and Professor of Architecture. During his extraordinarily
vibrant and productive tenure as Dean (until his retirement in 1969)
Sert oversaw a variety of innovations, including the establishment of
the first formal professional degree program in Urban Design.
The Sert Collection includes thousands of drawings and plans related
to his work as an architect and urban designer, as well as related project
files of photographs, slides, and manuscript materials. There are also
substantial files of correspondence from Le Corbusier and Joan Miro,
as well as texts of lectures, material related to his published works,
and to his involvement in a wide range of professional organizations.
These materials are supplemented by drawings and paintings (many by
Le Corbusier) from Sert's private collection.
Gift of Josep Lluis Sert, 1979-1982
Drawings by Houshang Seyhoun
Educated at Teheran University and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris,
Seyhoun taught at, and was eventually Dean of, the Faculty of Fine Arts
of Teheran University.
The collections consists of 12 drawings-the majority signed and dated
by the artist-of landscapes and abstract images.
Gift of Houshang Seyhoun, 1976
Sidney N. Shurcliff, 1906-1981
Papers of Arthur A. Shurcliff and Sidney N. Shurcliff
Arthur A. Shurcliff was educated at MIT and Harvard. He apprenticed
with the Olmsted firm until 1905, when he established an independent
practice in landscape and urban design in Boston. In 1900, he assisted
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., in establishing Harvard's School of Landscape
Design, the first professional program of its kind in the world. Shurcliff
is perhaps best known as the landscape designer for the gardens of Colonial
Williamsburn; his practice encompassed not only private gardens and
historic recreations, but also the planning of public parks, roadways,
and recreational facilities. Shurcliff was also an accomplished painter,
inventor, and essayist.
Sidney N. Shurcliff (who received both his undergraduate and professional
education as a landscape designer at Harvard) joined his father in practice
in the 1930s. Sidney Shurcliff continued and expanded the office(it
was to become ultimately Shurcliff, Merrill & Footit) and was notably
active in the American Society of Landscape Architects.
The Shurcliff Collection includes drawings and plans, photographs, and
correspondence related to firm projects undertaken for public and private
clients. Also included are miscellaneous manuscript and printed materials
relating to a variety of design issues, selective personal correspondence
files, an early billbook, and diary.
Gifts of Mrs. Sidney Shurcliff, Mrs. Sarah Shurcliff Ingelfinger,
Mr. and Mrs. Willam Shurcliff, and Mr. Charles Shurcliff
[The collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society include
additional material relating to the Shurcliff Family and to Arthur Shurcliff's
professional work.]
Alison Margaret Smithson and Peter Denham Smithson were among the most influential
British architects of the latter half of the 20th century. They developed an eloquent
and rigorous approach to architecture and urbanism, expressed in both practice and writing.
They married in 1949 and set up a practice together that was to be one of the most remarkable
British architectural partnerships, notable for such landmarks as the Hunstanton Secondary
Modern School in Norfolk (1949-54), The Economist Building (1959-64) in London, and Robin Hood Gardens (1966-72), a housing complex in east London; and for such
visionary projects as the 1956 House of the Future. As younger members of CIAM (Congrs
Internationaux d'Architecture Moderne) and, by 1956, as founding members of Team 10,
they were at the heart of the debate on the future course of modern architecture,
demonstrating a broad concern in the social environment and advocating for buildings that
were specific to their location and purpose.
The Alison and Peter Smithson Archive is comprised of material assembled and maintained by
Alison and Peter Smithson, and documents more than fifty years of practice through their
architectural work and writings. Projects, both built and unbuilt, are represented with
drawings, sketches, photographs, clippings, and correspondence. Essays include both published
and unpublished texts. The collection also includes a selection of printed works by and about
the Smithsons.
Gift of the Smithson Family, 2003
Hugh Stubbins, 1912-The Hugh Stubbins Archive
Hugh Stubbins graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in
1931 and was awarded the M. Arch. by the GSD in 1935. At the invitation
of Walter Gropius, Stubbins taught for more than a decade during the
1940s and 1950s at the GSD; in 1954 he left teaching to devote himself
to his architectural firm, which was to become a highly successful international
practice. Among Hugh Stubins' best known projects are the Berlin Congress
Hall (1955), Citicorp's New York headquarters (1972), the Federal Reserve
Bank of Boston (1970), and Harvard's Countway (1965) and Pusey (1976)
libraries.
The Stubbins Archive documents more than fifty years of professional
practice in drawings, plans, correspondence, research files, photographs,
and memorabilia. As well as documenting the work of Hugh Stubbins as
an individual designer, the Archive offers access to a broad array of
building types (ranging from private residences to educations complexes
to stadiums to office buildings) and to the operating history of a mid-century
architectural firm.The Stubbins Early Years Collection is comprised of Stubbins early work, particularly residential architecture.The Stubbins Schools Collection is comprised of Stubbins schools (largely private, elementary or high schools) designed between the 1950s and 1970s.
Gift of Hugh A. Stubbins, 1988
TAC Visual Resources Collection
With the demise of The Architects Collaborative in 1995, a variety
of documentation from the firm's office was dispersed among several
area collections.
The Special Collections Department acquired the TAC slide library; an
estimated 100,000 images representing some 50 years of practice. The
slides include reproductions of plans and drawings, as well as views
of sites, construction, and completed projects. These materials are
supplemented by clippings and research files focused on TAC founder
Walter Gropius.
The Benjamin Thomspon and Associates Archive
The BTA and Associates Archive includes photographs, slides, research
and promotional material, analyses, reports, and models related to dozens
of BTA projects-among them commercial sites, campuses, restorations,
and large-scale planning studies. The photographic materials include
reproductions of plans and drawings, as well as views of completed projects.
Gift of Jane and Benjamin Thompson, 1996
Louisa Vaughan Conrad was born in Prides Crossing, Massachusetts in 1913. She studied at the Cambridge School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, affiliated to Smith College, and graduated from the Graduate School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Upon graduation from Smith, Louisa Vaughan Conrad opened, together with Sarah Pillsbury Harkness, a showroom in Boston at 687 Boylston Street, where they sold furniture by Finnish designers Aino and Alvar Aalto. They were the sole and exclusive distributors for Artek-Pascoe of the Aalto furniture in the state of Massachusetts at the time, and operated under the name Pillsbury and Vaughan from 1940 to 1942.
Gift of Ellen Vaughan Howe, 2006
Charles Vidich graduated from Brandeis University in 1970 and was awarded
a Master of City Planning degree by Harvard in 1974.
The Vidich archive contains transcribed interviews, clippings, and ephemera
assembled by Mr. Vidich in the course of researching his book, The
New York Cab Driver and His Fare (1976).
Gift of Charles Vidich, 1975
The von Moltke Collection
A graduate of the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, Wilhelm von Moltke
continued his studies with Walter Gropius in the GSD master Studio;
receiving an M.Arch. degree in 1942. He practiced with Marcel Breuer
and Eero Saarinen, developed his own practice as a city planner, working,
most notably, as chief designer for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission,
1953-1961. he was director of urban design for the Guayana Project (p.v.),
1961-1964 and in 1963 became the first director of the urban Design
program at the GSD. In addition to his activities in developing the
Urban Design curriculum, von Moltke was an influential lecturer and
consultant.
The von Moltke Collection includes a broad variety of materials (drawings,
plans, reports, correspondence, and memoranda) related to his student
work at the GSD, his professional practice as both an architect and
urban planner, and his work as an educator. There are substantial files
of research materials, printed items and ephemera, and substantial files
of drawings and plans (supplemented by correspondence, research files
and photographs) related to the Guayana Project.
Papers of Martin Wagner
Martin Wagner was born in Konigsberg and received his education in
architecture and engineering at Berlin and Dresden. He was active as
an architect and planner during the Weimar Republic, serving on the
boards of a variety of official planning agencies in Berlin until 1933.
Recruited by Walter Gropius, Wagner emigrated to the United States in
1938 and was a member of the GSD faculty until his retirement in 1950.
Wagner was a prolific writer throughout his career; of particular note
is his Wirtschaftlicher Stadtebau, published in 1951.
The Wagner Collection includes drafts of articles and monographs, as
well as correspondence and clippings, together with some material generated
by Wagner's son Bernard, himself an architect. The printed materials
which originally accompanied these materials have been catalogued and
integrated into the holdings of the Loeb Library's general collections.
Gifts of Gertrude Wagner, 1971; I.E. Saporta, 1996
Gift of Veronica Jochum von Molkte
Joseph Wasserman (1931-2004) was a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (MArch 1957). Joining Norman Hoberman (MArch 1957) in professional practice, their firm, with a focus on community planning and affordable housing, developed some 2,000 units for the New York State Urban Development Corporation. Among their most notable work were complexes for the elderly constructed in Rochester, NY, Westchester County and on Coney Island. The Columbus Townhouses on New Yorks upper West Side (with Jerome Kretchmer) is another significant Wasserman design.
Included in the collection are drawings, plans, photographs, slides, journals and clippings related to Joseph Wassermans professional design activities and to the work of the practice of Wasserman & Hoberman.
Gift of Andrea Wasserman, Sarah Lindsay Wasserman and Marion Wasserman, 2005. Gift of Norman Hoberman, 2005.
In conjunction with the 1996 GSD exhibition Making a Landscape of
Continuity: The Practice of Innocenti and Webel, curated by Gary
Hilderbrand, the Special Collections Department acquired a collection
of materials related to and included in the exhibition. Included are
drawings and plans, photographs and ephemera; support for the processing
of these items was received from the Hubbard Educational Trust.
Gift of Richard K. Webel, MLA '23, 1997
Nick Wheeler began his career as a professional photographer in San Francisco, following his graduation in 1971 from Stanford University with a degree in architecture. He subsequently re-located to Massachusetts and during the following decades photographed work by numerous distinguished Boston area firms and individuals. His work has been widely published; Nick Wheeler is also the recipient of an AIA Honor Award for career achievement. The archive includes negatives, slides and transparencies, most dating from the 1970s and 1980s.
Gift of Nick Wheeler, 2006.
Papers of Robert Harvey Whitten, 1920-1935
Robert H. Whitten served as a planning consultant in a number of American
cities, among them Cleveland, Providence, Atlanta, and Boston; he was
also employed by the New York and its Environs Planning Commission.
The author of numerous reports and analyses, he co-authored several
influential titles in planning studies, among them Problems of Planning
Unbuilt Areas (1929) and neighborhoods and Small Homes (1931).
The Whitten Collection contains correspondence, planning reports, and
ephemera documenting Whitten's career, particularly his work as a consultant
for the new York State Planning Board.
Gifts of Mrs. Robert H. Whitten and the New York State Planning Board
Willson Collection of Photographs of American Architecture
Edmund Willson was educated at Harvard and continued his studies in
architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. he began his professional
practice in Providence, RI, as an associate of the firm of Stone &
Carpenter, assisted in the design of a number of notable buildings in
the Rhode island capitol.
The Willson Collection consists of 11 scrapbooks containing approximately
500 photographs of architectural subjects. One volume is devoted to
the work of H.H. Richardson; three to French architecture. The bulk
of the images are interior and exterior views of public and private
buildings in the northeastern United States.
Gift of Professor R.W. Willson