Julius Adolphe Schweinfurth papers

Julius A. Schweinfurth was born in Auburn, NY on September 20, 1858, the second of four sons of Charles J. Schweinfurth and Katherine Ammon.  His father, elder brother Charles, and two younger brothers Albert and Henry were also architects.  Schweinfurth came to Boston in 1879 and was employed by the architectural firm of Peabody and Stearns as a draughtsman.  As early as 1881, he was accepting work independently.  In 1883 Schweinfurth and his elder brother Charles joined forces in a short-lived partnership in Cleveland.

In 1886 he traveled to Europe with Frank E. Wallis, who had also worked at Peabody and Stearns.  This nine-month trip through England, France, Spain and Italy was in the tradition of the Beaux Arts system of education in which architects studied the great art and architecture of the past.  Upon his return to Boston, Schweinfurth rejoined Peabody and Stearns.  He published a collection of his travel drawings, "Sketches Abroad", in 1888.

In 1889 he married Fannie Bellows, submitted designs for the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial to be built in Manhattan, the Gettysburg Monument for the State of New York (Soldiers Monument), and designed and built the Bradley Memorial Chapel and Gate Lodge in his home town of Auburn, New York.  Schweinfurth continued to work as chief designer for Peabody and Stearns while accepting commissions and submitting designs to competitions as an independent architect until 1895.  In 1895 he left Peabody and Stearns to open his own practice.

Between 1895 and 1928 Schweinfurth designed more than 70 buildings and saw many of them built.  While most of his completed works are located in and around Boston, his projects were not confined to the Boston area.  Schweinfurth enjoyed a national reputation and participated in many of the high profile architectural competitions of his time, such as those for the Chicago Tribune Tower, the Grant Memorial, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.  He also submitted designs to competitions for the Minnesota State Capital Building, the Boston Athenaeum, the U.S. Post Office, Court House and Customs House in Providence, RI, and the Wellesley College Quadrangle.  Schweinfurth won the Wellesley College competition.  The design was built between 1904 and 1909, and an addition connecting the two front dormitories, Cazenove Hall and Pomeroy Hall, was built in 1919.  He designed several other buildings for Wellesley College, at least two of which were built: Wilder Hall in 1899 and the Gymnasium in 1909.

Schweinfurth designed several school buildings.  St. Francis Xavier and Wellesley were the only colleges for which he worked.  Most of his school designs were built in the Boston area and include the Sarah J. Baker School in Boston, the Quincy E. Dickerman School in Roxbury, the Pierce Grammar School in Brookline, and the High School of Practical Arts in Boston.

Most of the residences he designed were built in and around Boston.  Between 1894 and 1910, Schweinfurth saw at least sixteen of his designs for private homes built.  Several of these residences are townhouses in the Back Bay, on Beacon Street and on Commonwealth Avenue.  Many others were built in Brookline and Roxbury.  The only residences built outside of Massachusetts were the Everett Residence in Cleveland, designed while in partnership with his brother; the apartment houses on West 142nd Street in Manhattan in 1899; and Willow Point, the house for T. M. Osborne, built in Auburn, NY in 1905.

Schweinfurth designed other buildings including the Municipal Building, Ward 12, Boston (1923), the Brookline Police Station (1901), Brookline Baptist Church (1907), the Garden Office Building (1911), in which he maintained his own offices, and the Hugh Nawn Contracting Company Building in Roxbury (1922).  Several of his designs were featured in the publication "The American Architect".  The Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center in Auburn, New York also houses a collection of his architectural drawings and renderings.