Architectural Archives
The Architectural Archives at The Athenæum tell the story of the built environment of Philadelphia and the surrounding counties primarily from the 19th century until approximately 1945.
Collections of local architects who also designed buildings around the globe add an international component to the archives. Trade catalogs, architectural drawings, maps, photographs and other material are a treasure trove to historic preservationists, home owners, architects and scholars.
Recent Accessions
All collections accepted by The Athenæum go through a vetting process to make sure that they fall into our collecting scope and enhance the collection in some way.
As a whole, the archival collection tells a story that The Athenæum has charged itself with growing, keeping and sharing for years to come. The Athenæum works closely with the staff at The Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania.
Guided by Curator Kristina Wilson, Executive Director Beth Hessel and a Collections Committee composed of many of the most knowledgeable scholars of Philadelphia’s architectural history, The Athenæum accepted 16 new accessions in fiscal year 2025. These recent accession highlights hint at the diversity and richness of our extensive collections:
Paul Cret/H2L2: Photo albums 1920s-1960s.
Irving Sharrow collection: Portfolio of design, interior design and architectural renderings; original drawings and draftings; blueprints; original photographs; related documents.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Chestnut Hill: 34 drawings, 1900-2023.
Colonial Village development in Wayne, 1926: One large plan and five tracing paper renderings of proposed dwellings.
Keyser Brothers Iron Works collection: Drawings, sketches, blueprints, ephemera belonging to the Iron Craftsmen and Keyser Brothers.
Karen Nagel collection: Impact Studies, Reports of Findings, and Inventories & Histories of historically significant properties, mainly in and around the Main Line.
Dilworth House: Scrapbook/photos.
Initiatives in Collections Care
The Athenæum prioritizes keeping everything in our vast and varied collections stored in a safe, climate-controlled environment.
Thanks to The Athenæum’s resource sharing agreement with the University of Pennsylvania, we can utilize their offsite storage facility LIBRA to house any materials, especially oversized drawings, for which there is no room onsite.
For years, The Athenæum has kept rolled, oversized drawings in an office storage facility in Delaware, using large, multicellular cardboard boxes custom-built for our collection materials. To maintain better physical and intellectual control of these offsite items, we have been recalling boxes from Delaware, rehousing the drawings in individual tubes, and transferring them to LIBRA, all while ensuring that the metadata describing these items are accurate, up-to-date and synchronized across our various digital platforms.
As this process continues, we hope that it will become even easier for researchers to navigate our collections online, using both PAB and Find, while also streamlining the process by which staff recall offsite materials for in-person use.
Building PA Oral History Project
The Athenæum received a $5,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission to support “Keystones: The Building Pennsylvania Oral History Project.”
With these funds, The Athenæum will create a digital archive of 33 oral history interviews of senior design professionals in the greater Philadelphia area conducted by Hyman Myers and Bruce Laverty in the 1990s and early 2000s. The grant will also allow us to train a new cohort of oral historians to conduct further interviews to grow the archive.
The oral history interview subjects include internationally recognized architects like Laurie Olin, Bernard Cywinski, Vincent Kling, Eugene Kohn, as well as leaders in interior design, lighting design, architectural photography and structural engineering.
ArchivesSpace
The Athenæum has added ArchivesSpace, an archival software program, as a research tool to search existing and new accessions. In an ongoing effort to broaden access to all users, more finding aids to our collections will be made available through ArchivesSpace’s public portal over time.
ArchivesSpace will exist alongside Philadelphia Architects and Buildings as a research hub, serving as an additional resource for collections found at The Athenæum of Philadelphia. Together, the two sites will offer a comprehensive view of everything The Athenæum has to offer!
200 collection level records added
Collections Access
Philadelphia Architects and Buildings (PAB)
Geohistory
She describes The Athenæum as a warm and stimulating learning community.