Research Guides: Primary Resources for Architecture: Beyond Princeton

Archives and Collections

New York Real Estate Brochures Collection: The New York Real Estate Brochure Collection was donated to Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library by Yale Robbins, Henry Robbins, and David Magier in 1986. The collection consists of over 9,200 advertising brochures, floor plans, price lists, and related materials that document residential and commercial real estate development in the five boroughs of New York and outlying vicinities from the 1920s to the 1970s.

Philadelphia Architects & Buildings: This resource offers free access to a database of architectural and hisrotical information and images for 35,000+ structures in Philadelphia and surrounding counties. Includes all those on the Philadelphia Historical Commission list of significant buildings, and the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission’s inventory of historic structures. All local buildings represented in the Athenæum and the University of Pennsylvania architectural collections, as well as the original architectural holdings of such institutions as the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Library Company of Philadelphia are included in the database. Searchable by Architect, Building Name, and Location.

Architecture of the Pacific Northwest Database: This database contains selected architectural drawings from the Pacific Northwest Architecture Collection representing regionally significant architects and designers spanning the period from the 1880's into the 1980's. This collection showcases design and working drawings of important examples of both historic and more contemporary residential, commercial, and public buildings in the Puget Sound region.

Charles Saladino Landscape Architecture Collection: Charles S. Saladino II was a highly respected landscape architect who worked on several public service projects while also leading the fight to gain professional recognition for landscape architects. Saladino holds the first license for landscape architecture in the state of Nevada. In 2001, he was recognized as a Fellow to the American Society of Landscape Architects and worked for several organizations including the National Park Service before owning his own business, Saladino and Associates in Reno, Nevada and later joining Stantec in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Dreaming the Skyline: Resort Architecture and the New Urban Space: The archive charts the city’s metamorphosis from the 1950s to 1980s through photographs, drawings and proposals from two key players: architects Martin Stern, Jr. and Homer Rissman. The pair pioneered the template for the modern all-in-one megaresort. (The archive also includes examples from Reno and Lake Tahoe, as well as Atlantic City.) The project, dubbed “Dreaming the Skyline: Resort Architecture and the New Urban Space,” is composed of 2,000 artifacts documenting Vegas’s evolution from sleepy desert rest-stop to extravagant neon metropolis. UNLV led the 12-month archival collecting and digitizing effort, aided by an $80,000 federal grant.

Primary Source Digital Collections

London Low Life: London Low Life is a full-text searchable resource, containing colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. It is designed for both teaching and study, from undergraduate to research students and beyond. (PU Access Only)

Getty Research Institute's Architecture Digital Collections is a collection of 12 databases of architecture related personal letters, photographs, and drawings from all periods. Of particular note is the Julius Schulman Archive (1930s-1997) featuring over 3,000 images record examples of the modern movement in architecture in Southern California, including the Case Study houses.

NYC Municipal Archives Online Gallery: The Gallery features over 800,000 items digitized from the Municipal Archives’ vast holdings, including photographs, maps, motion-pictures and audio recordings spanning a 160-year period. Browsing the Collection by subject provides a useful overview of what is included.

Pidgeon Digital: The online version of The Pidgeon Audiovisual collection of talks by contemporary architects and related designers. The collection was founded in 1979 by Monica Pidgeon (long-time editor of the influential magazine Architectural Design) and lectures are continually added. (PU Access Only)