The Study of Architecture
A lover of architecture, Andrew Dickson White collected thousands of architectural books and images in the late 1860’s, forming the largest library on the subject at the time. In 1871, he donated his massive collection to Cornell on the condition that the university form a department of architecture. Even after he donated the bulk of his collection, A.D. White continued to acquire and donate materials to the department and library. Among his great gifts to the university were over 13,000 architectural photographs portraying buildings from around the world, including churches, mosques, and archaeological ruins. Many of the religious works in other library collections can also be used for architectural studies, as they often depict or describe places of worship.
Parabaik Manuscript. Burmese,circa 1850.
Buddha seated inside a temple from the story of Buddha and the 31 Planes of Existence.
Photograph of McGraw Museum, 1880s.
Cornell’s first museum, located in McGraw Hall, housed not only the collections of natural history, geology, paleontology, and art, but also the architectural photographs. In this image, the photographs can be seen in the cabinets on the upper level. Today, these photos are housed in the Library’s Rare and Manuscript Collections.
Temple of Bel, Palmyra, Syria. Mid-late 1800s.
This photograph of a temple (incorrectly labelled as the Temple of Bacchus) from the site of Palmyra is an example of the importance of the architectural photographs. Many of the structures pictured in A.D. White’s collection are no longer standing. Photographs are all that remain. The ancient Temple of Bel at Palmyra was destroyed by the terrorist organization known as the ‘Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’ on August 30, 2015.
Buddhist manual, circa 1930.
This Thai Buddhist folding book contains images of pagodas as well as text on how to construct them.
Qur’an, with hand drawn illustrations of Mecca. Undated.
Gift of Mrs. William F.E. Gurley, 1944.