MBB Architects | |
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Practice information | |
Partners | Mary Burnham, Jeffrey Murphy, Sara Grant, Taylor Aikin |
Founded | 1998 (Murphy, Burnham & Buttrick Architects) |
Location | New York City, United States |
Significant works and honors | |
Buildings |
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MBB Architects is an architectural design firm based in New York City, known for the preservation and renewal of historical and culturally significant buildings such as St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trinity Church Wall Street, and Park Avenue Synagogue. Founding partners Jeffrey Murphy, Mary Burnham, and Harold Buttrick (formerly of Buttrick, White and Burtis) established the firm as Murphy, Burnham & Buttrick in 1998. [1] Now a women-owned firm, MBB had, as of 2020, approximately 30 employees. [1]
In 2015, MBB completed a 10-year, $177 million restoration and renovation of St. Patrick's Cathedral in midtown Manhattan, including the addition of a geothermal heating and cooling system. [2] [3] New York Magazine's architecture critic, Justin Davidson, wrote that “The result is so conspicuously glorious that it makes Rockefeller Center look suddenly shabby by comparison.” [4] According to Davidson, “The most impressive tasks aren’t even visible: replacing the entire cooling and heating system and hooking them up to geothermal wells that have been sunk up to 2,200 feet below Manhattan’s asphalt crust.” [4]
In 2021, the firm completed a three-year restoration and renovation of Trinity Church Wall Street, which The New York Times called “a shining example of stewardship.” [5] In addition to restoring the historic interiors and uncovering hidden windows, [6] the project improved the church's accessibility, acoustics and energy performance. [7] According to Traditional Building Magazine, "One of the more innovative designs involves the ADA lift, which is seamlessly tucked behind a pair of movable sedilia chairs on the chancel." [8] MBB also renovated the historic Park Avenue Synagogue in collaboration with Judaica expert Amy Reichert. [9] [10]
In 2017 the firm renovated the historic Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn, which U.S. President Joe Biden later called "an incredible place" that is "nurturing a new generation of Black playwrights, performers." [11] Notable education design projects include NYU Abu Dhabi Institute at 19 Washington Square North in New York City; Public School 330 [12] in Queens, New York City, built around a glass-enclosed “gymnatorium”; [13] a rooftop athletic center addition to the Grace Church School; an educational green roof at PS 41 Greenwich Village School; [14] and the renovation and expansion of St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's School, [15] where the firm "scrutinized every bit of space from basement to roof to maximize programmatic use." [16]
The firm's 2003 Habitat for Humanity Row Houses in the Bronx were described as "well-designed, dignified and enhancing the urban streetscape" by The New York Times. [17] Another civic housing design, a post-disaster module made of "mold-resistant boating and surfer materials," was selected as a finalist in a 2008 competition organized by New York City's Office of Emergency Management. [18] The firm's design for a net zero energy library in California received an award from the American Institute of Architects, California. [19] Sara Grant, a partner in the firm who works on inclusive design strategies, wrote in a 2023 op-ed, "When we set aside preconceptions about differently abled and non-neurotypical learners, we discover new possibilities." [20]
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. It is at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, between West 110th Street and West 113th Street.
Trinity Church is a historic parish in the Episcopal Diocese of New York, whose church is located at 89 Broadway opposite Wall Street, in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Known for its centuries of history, prominent location, distinguished architecture and bountiful endowment, Trinity's congregation is said to be "high church", its activities based on the traditions of the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion in missionary outreach, and fellowship. In addition to its main church, Trinity parish maintains two chapels: St. Paul's Chapel, and the Chapel of St. Cornelius the Centurion on Governors Island. The Church of the Intercession, the Trinity Chapel Complex and many other of Manhattan's Episcopal congregations were once part of Trinity parish. Columbia University was founded on the church's grounds as King's College in 1754.
St. Patrick's Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is the seat of the Archbishop of New York as well as a parish church. The cathedral occupies a city block bounded by Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, 50th Street, and 51st Street, directly across from Rockefeller Center. Designed by James Renwick Jr., it is the largest Gothic Revival Catholic cathedral in North America.
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Charles Donagh Maginnis was an Irish-American architect. He emigrated to Boston at age 18, trained as an architect and went on to form the firm Maginnis & Walsh, designing ecclesiastical and campus buildings across America. From 1937 to 1939, Maginnis held the office of President of the American Institute of Architects.
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The Eldridge Street Synagogue is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue at 12–16 Eldridge Street in the Chinatown and Lower East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. Built in 1887 for Congregation Kahal Adath Jeshurun, the synagogue is one of the first erected in the U.S. by Eastern European Jews. The congregation, officially known as Kahal Adath Jeshurun with Anshe Lubz, still owns the synagogue and hosts weekly services there in the 21st century. The Museum at Eldridge Street, founded in 1986 as the Eldridge Street Project, also occupies the synagogue under a long-term lease. The building is a National Historic Landmark and a New York City designated landmark.
Franz Mayer of Munich is a German stained glass design and manufacturing company, based in Munich, Germany and a major exponent of the Munich style of stained glass, that has been active throughout most of the world for over 170 years. The firm was popular during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and was the principal provider of stained glass to the large Roman Catholic churches that were constructed throughout the world during that period. Franz Mayer of Munich were stained glass artists to the Holy See and consequently were popular with Roman Catholic clients. The family business is nowadays managed by the fifth generation and works in conjunction with renowned artists around the world.
Patrick Charles Keely was an Irish-American architect based in Brooklyn, New York, and Providence, Rhode Island. He was a prolific designer of nearly 600 churches and hundreds of other institutional buildings for the Roman Catholic Church or Roman Catholic patrons in the eastern United States and Canada, particularly in New York City, Boston and Chicago in the later half of the 19th century. He designed every 19th-century Catholic cathedral in New England. Several other church and institutional architects began their careers in his firm.
Congregation Rodeph Sholom is a Reform Jewish synagogue at 7 West 83rd Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, New York. Founded in 1842 by German Jewish immigrants, it is one of the oldest synagogues in the United States.
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St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church is a historic Catholic church near Capitol Square in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. It was designed by one of Madison's pioneer architects and built in 1888 to serve the former parish of St. Patrick.
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The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL), popularly known as the Mid-Manhattan Library, is a branch of the New York Public Library (NYPL) at the southeast corner of 40th Street and Fifth Avenue in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It is diagonally across from the NYPL's Main Branch and Bryant Park to the northwest. The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library has space for 400,000 volumes across a basement and seven above-ground stories. Its design includes 11,000 square feet (1,000 m2) of event space and 1,500 seats for library users.
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