Burnham, Alan, 1913-1984

Alan Burnham was born on February 10, 1913 in Englewood, New Jersey. He spent his early childhood in Philadelphia, later attending preparatory schools in Connecticut and Colorado. In 1931, he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend Harvard University. There, he would meet lifelong friends, Henry Hope Reed, architectural critic, and Wayne Andrews, architectural photographer, who he would correspond and collaborate with for the entirety of his professional career. Burnham graduated from Harvard in 1935 with a Bachelor of Science and went on to receive a Bachelor of Architecture from Columbia University in 1940. In 1939, he obtained from Richard Barren Hunt a copy of Catherine Howland Hunt’s manuscript chronicling the life of her husband, Richard Morris Hunt. Burnham’s work editing and indexing the Hunt manuscript sparked an enduring fascination in the career of the 19th century architect.

After receiving his architectural degree, Burnham worked as an architect, but always maintained an active interest in the study of American architectural history. In 1953, he served on the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter’s Committee on Housing, authoring a committee report entitled The Dwelling in Greater Manhattan: The Apartment 1850-1895, chronicling the history of apartment housing in New York City. While working as an associate at Shanley & Sturges, Burnham served as a member of the Municipal Arts Society’s Committee on Historic Architecture under the tutelage of his employer and Committee Chairman, Walter Knight Sturges. He succeeded Sturges as chairman and through the Municipal Arts Society, authored a broad survey of New York City’s historic architecture called New York Landmarks: A Study & Index of Architecturally Notable Structures in Greater New York, later published by Wesleyan University Press in 1963. In the course of his research for both the AIA and the MAS, Burnham began acquiring reference materials that evolved into his American Architectural Archive. Burnham saw the archive as his contribution to the study of architectural history, amassing a great wealth of publications, photographs, and prints catalogued for use by other historians.

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