Harold Van Buren Magonigle (1867-1935), Architect
dba: H. Van Buren Magonigle
Harold Van Buren Magonigle was born in Bergen, New Jersey on October 17, 1867 to John and Catherin Magonigle. His father was a bookkeeper. Harold married Elizabeth Marion Day in 1900 in Manhattan.[j][n] He died in Vermont on August 29, 1935.[1][2][4][5]
This page is a contribution to the publication, Place Makers of Nebraska: The Architects. See the format and contents page for more information on the compilation and page organization.
Contents
Compiled Nebraska Directory Listings
Educational & Professional Associations
1898: 1st Lieutenant, 109th Infantry, U. S. Army.[6]
active by 1914: Member of Salmagundi (Art) Club, New York City.[53]
1911: "Consulting architect" (with John M. Carrere and Cass Gilbert) to Municipal Building Commission of Hartford, Connecticut, advising on architects' competition.[27]
1911: Member of jury of awards for Sub-treasury Building in San Francisco (with Daniel H. Burnham of Chicago and three others).[28]
1912: Member of panel of three architects which selected participants in design competition for Missouri State Capitol, with W. B. Muncie of Chicago and John Van Brunt of Kansas City.[30][h]
1913: Member of jury, design competition for Hamilton County courthouse (Cincinnati), with James Knox Taylor and Paul Philippe Cret.[32]
1913: Member, board of directors, American Institute of Architects.[35]
1914: Professional advisor to school commissioners of Indianapolis on design competition for a new public library.[37]
1914: Member of panel of three architects, with P. P. Cret and William M. Kendall of New York, advising building commission for joint county/municipal building in Wilmington, Delaware.[38]
1917: Albert Harkness, draftsman employed in office of Magonigle.[40][l]
1920: Advisor in selection of Louis Borgeois as architect for Bahai Temple (1920), Chicago (Wilmette), Illinois.[48][p]
1926: Member of a panel of three architects, with Thomas Hastings and Edgarton Swartworth, advising building commission for Hartford County Courthouse, Connecticut.[57]
1926-1927: draftsman, Robert William McLaughlin, Jr.[1]
Architectural Study Travel
Rotch Traveling Scholarship to England, France, Italy and Greece, 1894-1896.[3][10][11]
British Isles, France, Italy and Spain, 1921.[3][a]
Buildings & Projects
The Maine Monument (1900-1913), New York, New York.[13][d]
General U.S. Grant memorial competition (1902).[15][16][e]
General George B. McClellan memorial competition (1902).[17][e]
McKinley Memorial (1904-1907), Canton, Ohio.[7]
Pedestal for Gov. Stevens Thomson Mason monument (1908), Detroit, Michigan.[18]
Winner, Robert Fulton memorial competition (1910), New York, New York.[19][23]
One of ten $1,000 "Second prize" winners in competition for design of Oakland City Hall (1910), Oakland, California.[24]
Design for a seal for The New Theatre (1910), displayed in Annual Show of NYC Architectural League, New York, New York.[20][f]
Firemen's Memorial (1910-1913), New York, New York.[21][22][34][g]
Invited participant in design competition for Department of State building (1910), Washington, D.C.[26]
Design for Perry's Victory Memorial (1911), for Put-In Bay, Ohio.[29
Design submitted in competition for Federal Capitol of Australia (1912).[30][h]
Invited participant in design competition for Pulitzer Fountain in Central Park (1912), New York, New York.[31]
Elks Clubhouse (1913), Brooklyn, New York.[33][i]
Brokaw House (1914), 79th Street east of 5th Avenue, New York City.[39][k]
Design for "Victory Way" (1919), temporary installation on Park Avenue between 45th & 50th Street, New York City.[41]
Design for "camp lodges" at Okara (1920), vicinity of Thendara, Herkimer County, in the Catskill Mountains, New York.[42][m]
Design for a fountain (with sculptor Robert Aitken)for courtyard of Mount Washington residence of Isaac Guggenheim, destroyed 1920 in a fire at the Fine Arts Building, New York City.[43]
Proposal for a monumental water gate as a Great War memorial (1920), at 110th Street and Riverside Drive, New York City.[44]
Invited participant in design competition for Nebraska State Capitol (1920), Lincoln, Nebraska.[9][45]
Designs for Adirondack cabins (1920), Adirondack League club grounds, Little Moose preserve locality, vicinity of Little Falls, New York.[47][o]
Liberty Memorial (1921-1926), Kansas City, Missouri.[49][50][51][58][60][n]
Design for billboard promoting tourism to Atlanta, Georgia (1924), Times Square, New York City.[52]
Design (with Antonin Raymond, Tokyo) for American Embassy (1925), Tokyo, Japan.[54][55][q]
Design for a tablet honoring fire department horses (1926), to be installed at Firemen's Memorial, Riverside Drive and 100th Street, New York City.[56]
First Plymouth Congregational Church (1929-1931), Lincoln, Nebraska.[8] (LC13: D07-045)
Writings
"The Renaissance" chapter in The Significance of the Fine Arts, published under the direction of the Committee on Education of the American Institute of Architects, Boston: Marshall Jones Company, 1923.
The Nature, Practice and History of Art, by H. Van Buren Magonigle, Scribner's, 1924.
Report (1926) proposing monuments and programs commemorating George Rogers Clark, to commission appointed by State of Indiana.[59]
Notes
a. Magonigle's passport application of 1921 specifically cited "Architectural Study" as the purpose of his planned European trip. That application also includes a photo portrait of Magonigle.[3]
b. Lincoln Star of May 27, 1927 announced a half-million dollar campaign to fund the construction of a new First-Plymouth Church. Magonigle was named as the architect, "Associated with...Robert W. McLaughlin, Jr." Rev. B. F. Wyman noted: "The longing of our people has not been for a colonial or Gothic church, one the product of New England and the other of old Europe...but for an original type that would fit the pioneer spirit of the west and of our Pilgrim faith and yet be rooted deep in church traditions."[7]
c. The Indianapolis Journal in early 1894 reported: "A nephew of Edwin Booth, Harold Van Buren Magonigle, has won the traveling scholarship in architecture offered annually by Mr. Rotch, of Boston. This prize entitles him to $1,000 a year for two years, during which time he must travel aboard and study architecture."[10] An exhibition of works by students at the American Academy in Rome opened at the Art Institute of Chicago March 2, 1897, including "plans, elevations, perspective drawings, and sketches by Harold Van Buren Magonigle" and other architects and arts who were recipients of various traveling scholarships.[11][12]
d. The team of Magonigle and sculptor Attilio Piccirilli was chosen among the three finalists for the monument design.[13]
e. The team of Wilkinson & Magonigle were among 29 competitors for the commission for a memorial or statue of General U.S. Grant. The plaster maquettes were displayed at the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, D.C. in April, 1902. The Wilkinson and Magonigle design was described as attracting "considerable attention" and was illustrated with a photograph in the Washington Evening Star newspaper of April 9, 1902, which also noted that Attillo Piccerilli [presumably, Attilio Piccirilli] was sculptor for this team of architects. Wilkinson and Magonigle competed among thirty artists for the General McClellan monument, later that same month. [15][16]
f. Piccirilli was the sculptor of the seal, from Magonigle's design.[20]
g. Piccirilli was also sculptor of the Firemen's Memorial.[22]
h. Walter Burley Griffin of Chicago was chosen in the competition; Magonigle received "Hon. mention." [30]
i. Magonigle teamed up with Alexander W. Ross on the Brooklyn Elks Clubhouse.[33]
j. In 1913, Rebekah Harrison Magonigle, who had been married to Harold in the 1890s and divorced him in North Dakota in 1899, sued him for alimony in New York State. Her petition was denied on the basis that she had waited too long.[36]
k. New York Times reported in 1914: "Plans were filed yesterday by the architect, H. Van Buren Magonigle, for a new residence to be erected on the north side of Seventy-ninth Street, 110 feet east of Fifth Avenue, for Mrs. Elvira Brokaw Fischer. The house will have a frontage of 35 feet and a depth of 102.2 feet, with a facade of brick and limestone. In the front will be an automobile drive."[39]
l. Harkness won "Honorable Mention" in the newspaper's competition.[40]
m. The Tribune's advertisement for Okara includes a perspective sketch for "One of the Okara camps as planned by H. Van Buren Magonigle, Architect." It also notes that "A prominent New York architect has drawn up plans for lodges suitable to the location which can be built at very reasonable cost."[42]
n. In 1920-1922, Edith Magonigle was president of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.[46] She was chosen to create murals at the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, designed by her husband. The "mural" was to be a giant sculptural frieze. The board of governors of the memorial rejected her as the sculptor in 1926.[51][58][60]
o. A 1920 article on Magonigle's Adirondack cabin designs quotes him at length on his process of selecting colors compatible with that setting, noting "The principal motive actuating the design of this series of ladges was first to find something in design and color suited to the Adirondack background...It took me three months of scrambling around through the brush last summer to find the true Adirondack color..." He identified that color as "a hazy blue," with "gray black of spruce bark after a rain," and "The fall colors, the gold of the beeches and the scarlet of the maples after the first hard frost" as accents.[47]
p. A lengthy article in the Butte (Montana) Miner described the Bahai faith and its planned Temple in Chicago. It noted that when the Bahai convention in New York City in 1920 "finally narrowed down the design of Bourgeois and that of another the committee felt unwilling to decide without expert advice...Bourgeois strongly opposed to having any artist or architect of national reputation, who must necessarily be a Beaux Arts man, pass upon his original and new conception, but he was forced to yield, and H. Van Buren Magonigle was called in....In the end Magonigle told the committee that if they wished a striking and original design which embodied all styles without unduly favoring any, but uniting them into an original unity well symbolizing the spirit of the religious movement for which the temple must stand, they could have not choice but to take the Bourgeois model."[48]
q. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported in 1925 that Mr. & Mrs. Magonigle passed through on their return from a trip to Japan, where he had designed the new American embassy building.[54]
References
1. Ancestry.com and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 1880 United States Federal Census [database on-line], s.v. "Harold Magonigle." Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2010.
2. "Harold VanBuren Magonigle" on Find A Grave, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138811762, s.v. "Harold VanBuren Magonigle," on-line resource access December 31, 2018.
3. Ancestry.com. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925 [database on-line], s.v. "H. Van Buren Magonigle," Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2007. 1894 and 1921 passport applications.
4. Ancestry.com. New York, New York, Extracted Marriage Index, 1866-1937 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.
5. Ancestry.com. Vermont, Death Records, 1909-2008 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.
6. Ancestry.com. New York, Military Service Cards, 1816-1979 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
7. "M'Kinley Memorial Architect," (Lincoln) Nebraska State Journal (October 21, 1904), 3; "Work on M'Kinley Monument," (Lincoln) Nebraska State Journal (May 19, 1905), 8.
8. "Impressive Carillon Tower and Cloister Court Will Distinguish New First-Plymouth Church," Lincoln (Nebraska) Star (May 27, 1928), D-2.
9. In "Mere Mention," Evening State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) (January 9, 1920), A-6.
10. "About People and Things," Indianapolis (Indiana) Journal (January 4, 1894), 4.
11. "Guide to the Rotch Travelling Scholarship Records, 1882-1996," MIT, Institute Archives & Special Collections: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1999, 2002, 2010. Magonigle listed on page 5 of pdf available on-line at https://libraries.mit.edu/archives/research/collections/collections-mc/pdf/mc520.pdf Accessed January 2, 2019.
12. Chicago Tribune (February 28, 1897), 31.
13. "Maine Monument Designs. Selections Made in the New York Competition," (Washington, D. C.) Evening Times (November 9, 1900), 4.
14. "U.S.S. Maine National Monument," in Central Park on website of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, on-line at https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/central-park/monuments/966 Accessed January 2, 2019.
15. "Grant Memorial. Competition of Artists," Los Angeles Times (April 2, 1902), 4.
16. "The Grant Memorial--Advisory Committee's Work Practically Ended. Report in Writing Made by All Except Mr. Daniel H. Burnham," Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) (April 9, 1902), 8.
17. "M'Clellan's Statue--Public Exhibition of Models Tomorrow at Corcoran Gallery," (Washington DC) Evening Star (April 30, 1902), 1.
18. "Odd Information," Atchison (Kansas) Daily Champion (September 4, 1908), 3.
19. "To Design Fulton Monument--First Round Decided in Competition of Aspiring Architects," Baltimore (Maryland) Sun (January 7, 1910), 2.
20. "Art Exhibitions--The Annual Show of the Architectural League," New York Tribune (February 2, 1910), 7.
21. "New Sites for Firemen's Memorial," New York Times (April 20, 1910), 3.
22. "To Begin Work on Memorial," New-York Tribune (November 28, 1910), 6.
23. "Costly Memorial to be Erected for Robert Fulton--The Monument will be in the Form of a Magnificent Watergate in the Hudson River and will be after the Design of H. Van Buren Magonigle," Miami (Florida) News (June 2, 1910), 2.
24. "Plans for City Hall Reviewed by Men Who Will Make Selection--Twenty-Eight Noted Architects Submit Drawings for Oakland's New Municipal Building, to be Erected Soon," Oakland (California) Tribune (June 20, 1910), 9.
25. "Gotham Firm Receives Prize for City Hall Design," Oakland (California) Tribune (June 23, 1910), 13.
26. "Invited to Compete--Architects Asked to Design Government Buildings," Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) (October 20, 1910), 2.
27. "The Municipal Building is in Sight. City now has property desired for site," Hartford (Connecticut) Courant (January 21, 1911), 5.
28. "Contest for Plans for the Subtreasury--Building Here Is Made Basis of Competition," San Francisco Call (February 16, 1911), 2.
29. "New Classic Design for Perry Memorial--Famous Architect Submits Plans to Commission Which Will Meet At Put-In Bay Next Week," Sandusky (Ohio) Star-Tribune (August 31, 1911), 1 (with drawing of design); "Centennial Plans Will Go Forward...National Fine Arts Commission to Decide Upon Design," Sandusky (Ohio) Star-Tribune (September 11, 1911), 1.
30. "Capital Designs--Big Red-Sealed Packet Opened. Chicago First Prize," Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald (May 24, 1912), 9.
31. "Central Park Site for the Pulitzer Fountain Granted...Competition for Design," Saint Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch (December 22, 1912), 32.
32. "Judges Are Named For Architects' Competition in Which Courthouse Plans Will Be Submitted," Cincinnati (Ohio) Enquirer (June 24, 1913), 13.
33. "Best House in State for Brooklyn Elks," Brooklyn (New York) Daily Eagle (August 23, 1913), 12 (with rendering).
34. "Firemen of the World to Fight Imaginary Flames--Fire Fighters From Every Important Country of the Globe Soon to Gather in New York City for Monster Convention," Buffalo (New York) Morning News (August 24, 1913), 19.
35. "Desire Artistic Work for Nation--Architects Plan Law Enabling Government to Secure Most Able Architects," Detroit Free Press (October 26, 1913), 15.
36. Honolulu (Hawaii) Star-Bulletin (December 13, 1913), 14; "Divorcee of 16 Years Wants Alimony," Washington (D.C.) Herald (February 11, 1914), 7; "Cannot Get Alimony after Fourteen Years--Court Rules That Former Wife Waited Too Long Before Suing Magonigle," Evening World (New York, New York) (February 21, 1914), 4.
37. In "Social Notes," Dayton (Ohio) Daily News (February 9, 1914), 5.
38. "Architects Plans--Board Will Consider Those for New Joint Building To-day," Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware) (February 25, 1914), 2.
39. "New Home for Brokaw Family," New York Times (April 3, 1914), 18.
40. "Young Architects Solve Problem of Good Looking, Comfortable Country Dwellings of Moderate Cost," (New York, New York) Sun (April 1, 1917), 35.
41. "'Victory Way' To Be Centre of Loan Activities--Noted Artists Design Splendid Plaza in Park Avenue," New York Tribune (April 13, 1919), 7.
42. "You Will Need Blankets, August Nights, In Your ADIRONDACK Camp at Okara," advertisement, New York Tribune (July 11, 1920), 14.
43. Captioned illustration of "Two of the art treasures that were destroyed in the recent million-dollar fire at the Fine Arts Building," New York Tribune (February 15, 1920), 58.
44. "Elaborate Models For War Memorial Put on Exhibition," New York Tribune (February 17, 1920), 23.
45. "Plans for the Nebraska Capitol Considered by the Jury," Sunday State Journal (Lincoln, Nebraska) (July 4, 1920), 28 (illustrating designs by the nine competitors not chosen, with Goodhue's winning design illustrated on page 1).
46. "Women Painters Elect New Officers," Austin (Texas) American (November 21, 1920), 16; "Heads Women Painters--Miss Emily N. Hatch Succeeds Miss [sic] H. Van Buren Magonigle," New York Times (April 13, 1922), 19.
47. "New Designs Are Being Planned for Adirondack Camps," Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Press (November 29, 1920), 17.
48. "Exponent of an Universal Religion Uniting All Creeds in One to Lecture in Butte on Tour of the United States from Old Persia," Butte (Montana) Miner (January 3, 1921), 2.
49. "K.C. Accepts Memorial Plan--Structure To Cost Two Million To Commemorate World War," Topeka (Kansas) State Journal (June 29, 1921), 6.
50. "Huge Memorial to be Erected for Service Men--Kansas City Monument to World War Veterans Will Cost $2,000,000." Washington (D.C.) Times (July 11, 1921), 3.
51. "Woman to Decorate $2,000,000 Building--Mrs. H. Van Buren Magonigle to Do Mural Work on Kansas City Esthetic Centre," New York Times (April 16, 1922), 34.
52. "Atlanta's Invitation Read Daily by Millions," The (Atlanta, Georgia) Constitution (November 9, 1924), 11 (illustrated).
53. Philadelphia Inquirer (April 19, 1914), 12.
54. (New York) Daily News, (September 6, 1925), 38.
55. Honolulu Star-Bulletin (Hawaii) (December 24, 1925), 15.
56. "Tablet Will Honor Brave Fire Horses," (New York) Daily News (February 8, 1926), 37.
57. "Design for County Court House Picked," Hartford (Connecticut) Daily Courant (June 30, 1926), 1,2.
58. "Kansas City Drops Mrs. Magonigle as Memorial Sculptor," Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York) (December 1, 1926), 1.
59. "George Rogers Clark," Chllicothe (Ohio) Gazette (January 28, 1927), 4.
60. "Magonigle Demands Reason Kansas City Rejected War Frieze Executed by His Wife," Brooklyn (New York) Daily Eagle (February 2, 1927), 11.
Page Citation
E. F. Zimmer, “Harold Van Buren Magonigle (1867-1935), Architect,” in David Murphy, Edward F. Zimmer, and Lynn Meyer, comps. Place Makers of Nebraska: The Architects. Lincoln: Nebraska State Historical Society, January 5, 2019. http://www.e-nebraskahistory.org/index.php?title=Place_Makers_of_Nebraska:_The_Architects Accessed, November 22, 2024.
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