Photo by Lori Savaree
I am an architect and senior associate at Pei Cobb Freed and Partners Architects in New York. My passion for design, sustainability, and architectural history/preservation converge with a focus in adaptive reuse projects including the repositioning of 1271 Avenue of the Americas—the former Time & Life Building, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Arts Center at Governors Island, and 717 Fifth Avenue—the former Corning Glass Building.
I discovered architect E. G. W. Dietrich while researching and writing the successful National Register nomination for the c. 1893 John and Doris Mollenhauer House in Bay Shore, NY. Over the last fifteen years, I have painstakingly researched and recreated Dietrich’s prolific career documenting more than 500 of Dietrich’s designs and visiting extant projects in six states. After acquiring Dietrich’s archive of drawings in 2021, I have continued to expand the collection through acquisitions and donations of original drawings, photographs, and historic publications. The true reward for my research work is introducing Dietrich and his architecture to a wider audience through this website, social media platforms, and in-person presentations. I have focused these presentations on communities that are home to his designs in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. My goal is to publish a monograph on Dietrich’s inventive and influential designs featuring the amazing archival collection of his original drawings and watercolor renderings.
Despite E. G. W. Dietrich’s successful and prolific career documented in architectural journals, newspapers, and his own archive of drawings (until recently unstudied), he remains an architect whose story is yet to be told. Dietrich designed churches, hotels, and other public buildings, but his most expressive designs were residences in the Shingle, Colonial Revival, and Arts and Crafts styles.
If you would like to learn more about me and my interest in architect E. G. W. Dietrich, you can listen to my conversation with Erika Funke, host of WVIA-FM's ArtScene.