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Robert Allan Jacobs (1905-1993) was an American architect and designer active in the United States from the 1930s until his retirement in the early 1980s. His work consists primarily of commercial projects, including numerous skyscrapers in New York City, along with a richly varied corpus of other institutional, residential, and commercial projects--primarily centered in New York City and its surrounding suburbs but ranging as far afield as South Africa and the Dominican Republic. The son of the notable Beaux-Arts architect Harry Allan Jacobs, Robert Allan Jacobs was educated at Amherst College and the Columbia University School of Architecture. Jacobs began his career as a disciple of Le Corbusier, went on to serve as a designer and draftsman for Harrison & Fouilhoux, and then formed a partnership with Ely Jacques Kahn in 1941--thus commencing three decades of pioneering collaborative design work that would leave an indelible mark on the Manhattan skyline. Together, Kahn & Jacobs made their debut with the Municipal Asphalt Plant in 1941 and went on to design such iconic projects as 100 Park Avenue (1944), the Universal Pictures Building (1947), 1407 Broadway (1950), 425 Park Avenue (1957), the Seagram Building (in collaboration with Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, 1958), the Astor Plaza Building (in collaboration with Carson & Lundin, 1961), the New York Telephone Building (1969), and One Astor Place (1970).

The projects in this collection represent the history of a firm that lasted nearly a century. The roots of the firm can be traced back to Hermann J. Schwarzmann, a German-born architect who designed the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876. Schwarzmann soon partnered with Albert Buchman and practiced with him until 1887. Unfortunately no drawings survive from the two earliest firms. This collection begins with records from the partnership of Buchman & Deisler (circa 1888-1899), followed by a succession of partnerships until the dissolution of the firm: Buchman & Fox (1899-1917), Buchman & Kahn (1917-1930), Ely Jacques Kahn Architects (1930-1940), and Kahn & Jacobs (1940-1973). The bulk of the collection documents the firms' work from 1893 until 1950. The collection includes approximately 8,250 architectural drawings for projects located primarily in New York City that were designed or altered by Kahn & Jacobs and the various predecessor partnerships. Major projects include the Bergdorf Goodman Department Store (1927); Bloomingdale's Department Store (1903-1917); the Bonwit Teller Department Store at Fifth Avenue and 38th Street (1911); the Film Center building (1928-1932); the original New York Times Building at 42nd Street and Broadway (1915-1920); and the Squibb Building (1929-1951), all in New York City. Researchers will also find drawings for the Oppenheimer-Collins Company buildings in Brooklyn (1915-1928), New York City (1906-1930), Philadelphia (1923), and Pittsburgh (1919-1928).