Andrew Dickson White Architectural Photographs Collection

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The Museum of the
Cornell University Department of Architecture

 

Cornell University’s Architecture Museum was created in 1874, and consisted of models and plaster casts collected by both A. D. White and Charles Babcock. It was apparently housed in one room on the third floor of White Hall (then called the North Building), as the following photographs—two views of the same room—illustrate.

Museum of Architecture, left side

George Willard Conable (Cornell Class of 1890), Architecture Museum, White Hall, ca.1888-1890. Cyanotype Photograph. 5172, Archives Photograph Collection, #13-6-2497, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library (click for an enlarged version)
Museum of Architecture, right side

George Willard Conable (Cornell Class of 1890), Architecture Museum, White Hall, ca.1888-1890. Cyanotype Photograph. 5171, Archives Photograph Collection, #13-6-2497, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library (click for an enlarged version)

Due to overcrowding in the College of Architecture, the architecture museum was disassembled around 1910. Although it no longer exists at Cornell, the museum that A. D. White and Charles Babcock built was at one time an important resource for students of architecture.

 
 
The Museum Collections

 

The first official description of the Architecture Museum appeared in the Cornell University Register and Catalogue for the academic year, 1874-1875. The prospectus stated that the collection had been formed only recently, but that it already included the following items for students of architecture who had enrolled in the new College of Architecture:

   
  •The collection of models in plaster, made by the Frères Chrétian of Paris, of domes, vaults, arches and stairs
•Models, in wood, of roof-trusses, jointing and scarfing
•Samples of encaustic tiles, presented by the agents of Minton & Co.
•A collection of marbles, American and foreign
•A collection of building stones
•A large number of lantern slides to be used in the camera as illustrating various remarkable buildings and as well the various styles of architecture

The architectural photographs that now form the core of the Andrew Dickson White collection were housed separately, on exhibit in the McGraw Hall Museum. Although intended primarily for students in the College of Architecture, the architectural photographs were considered part of Cornell’s nascent Museum of the Fine Arts, and were listed as an important campus resource—“a valuable collection of photographs, especially rich in illustrations of architecture...”
Source: The Cornell University Register and Catalogue 1874-1875 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1875): 87-89.

 

The corbel that A. D. White purchased in Troyes, France and brought back to Cornell University in 1886 found a new home atop a bookcase in the architecture museum in White Hall. Photograph #5171 (below, right) shows the corbel after its arrival in Ithaca, among a diverse selection of architectural elements.

The Troyes Corbel, taken in France, ca. 1886   The Troyes Corbel in Ithaca, taken ca. 1888
Corbel from the Cathedral of Troyes (France). Albumen print photograph. Sculpture date: ca. 13th to ca. 17th century. Photograph date: ca. 1865-ca. 1885. Measurements: Image: 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20 cm). Gift of Andrew Dickson White. #15/5/3090.00262, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library (Recto)  

The corbel (seen from its right side) as it was housed in the Cornell University College of Architecture Museum (detail from image above, right). George Willard Conable (Cornell Class of 1890), Architecture Museum, White Hall, ca.1888-1890. Cyanotype Photograph. 5171, Archives Photograph Collection, #13-6-2497, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library

The A. D. White Project is funded by a grant from the
Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation
and by a gift from Mr. Patrick A. Gerschel.
The participation of the Cornell Insititute for Digital Collections
has been funded by a gift from Mr. Arthur Penn.


Read a press release about the grant
and the collection
 
 
This page last updated January 10, 2002