Harold Van Buren Magonigle (1867–1935) was an American architect, artist, and author best known for his memorials. He achieved his greatest success as a designer of monuments, but his artistic practices included sculpture, painting, writing, and graphic design.

Biography

Harold Van Buren Magonigle was born in Bergen Heights, New Jersey on October 17, 1867. He worked for

Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape designer, best known as the co-designer, along with his protégé and junior partner Frederick Law Olmsted, of what would become New York Ci ...

Rotch & Tilden Rotch & Tilden was an American architectural firm active in Boston, Massachusetts from 1880 through 1895. The firm was organized by partners Arthur Rotch and George Thomas Tilden. Both had studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology an ...

, Schickel and Ditmars and McKim Mead & White before opening his own practice in 1903. He was the designer of the McKinley Memorial Mausoleum in Canton, Ohio and the

Liberty Memorial The National World War I Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri was opened in 1926 as the Liberty Memorial. In 2004, it was designated by the United States Congress as the country's official war memorial and museum dedicated to World War ...

in Kansas City, Missouri both commissions won through competitions. He designed the Core Mausoleum (1910–1915) at Elmwood Cemetery. Magonigle and sculptor Attilio Piccirilli collaborated as architect and artist on two familiar monuments in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

: the Monument to the USS ''Maine'' in Columbus Circle, and on the Fireman's Memorial on Riverside Drive and West 100th Street. He also designed the setting for Albert Weinert's Stevens T. Mason Monument in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, and for Robert Atken's Burritt Memorial in New Britain, Connecticut. Magonigle's wife,

Edith Edith is a feminine given name derived from the Old English words ēad, meaning 'riches or blessed', and is in common usage in this form in English, German, many Scandinavian languages and Dutch. Its French form is Édith. Contractions and var ...

, whom he married on April 24, 1900, was a muralist who collaborated with her husband on a number of his projects. He died in

Vergennes, Vermont Vergennes is a city located in the northwest quadrant of Addison County, Vermont, United States. The municipality is bordered by the towns of Ferrisburgh, Panton, and Waltham. As of the 2020 census, its population was 2,553. It is the small ...

on August 29, 1935. Magonigle's papers are held by the New York Public Library and by the Drawings and Archives Department in the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

References

External links

Typescript: Biography and competition design for Canberra, Australia
Cornell University Library
Photograph of Magonigle, c. 1930
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Harold Van Buren Magonigle architectural drawings and papers, circa 1894-1944, (bulk circa 1894-1930), held by the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Magonigle, Harold Van Buren 1867 births 1935 deaths 19th-century American architects 20th-century American architects Architects from New Jersey National Sculpture Society members