Buttrick White & Burtis

Buttrick White & Burtis Architects (also known as BWB Architects) was an architecture firm based in New York City, established in 1981 by the architects Harold Buttrick, Samuel G. White, and Theodore A. Burtis III. The firm remained active until 2002. Harold Buttrick left BWB in 1998 to form Murphy Burnham & Buttrick (MBB Architects). The architect Jean P. Phifer was a partner of the firm from 1989 until 1996, after which she served as president of the New York City Public Design Commission from 1998 to 2003. The architect Michael Dwyer was associated with the firm from 1981 to 1996. The architect and educator William W. Braham was associated with the firm from 1983 to 1989. In 2002, Buttrick White & Burtis merged with Platt Byard Dovell to become Platt Byard Dovell White (PBDW Architects).[1]

Architecture practice

Buttrick White & Burtis's work was eclectic. Writing in 1985 in New York Magazine, the architectural historian Carter Wiseman contrasted the firm's conservative renovation work at the traditional, oak-paneled Harvard Club of New York with their more avant-garde designs for the stores of the then-hip Tower Records chain, adding that the chain's downtown venue was "the most successful such enterprise in America."[2]

Historic preservation

BWB was also known for artful renovations and additions to architectural landmarks such as Casa Italiana, Columbia University, completed in 1996; and the Brooklyn College library, completed in 2002.

Saint Thomas Choir School

The firm's largest project, a fifteen-story, postmodern building in Manhattan, built for the Saint Thomas Choir School, was begun in 1985, completed in 1987,[3][4] and dedicated on January 14, 1988 by the Most Rev. and Rt. Hon. Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury.[5] In 1990, Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for The New York Times, included the school "among the city's best examples of contextual architecture."[6]

Traditional work

BWB occasionally designed new work in a traditional idiom; in a 1995 survey by The New York Times of the then-emerging New Classical school of architecture, the reporter Patricia Leigh Brown noted that, "Michael Dwyer...an architect at Buttrick White & Burtis...has recently completed a classical-style yacht and an $8.95 million town house on the Upper East Side and is renovating Rudolph Nureyev's former apartment in the Dakota."[7]

Work in Central Park

For a decade, beginning in 1984, BWB designed the architectural components of the Central Park Conservancy's master plan for the rehabilitation of the long neglected park. The largest of these projects, the restoration of the Grand Army Plaza at the park's southeast corner, well-funded by the surrounding property owners, was completed in 1990. In addition to its numerous restoration projects, BWB added two new buildings to the park: Ballplayers House, in 1990, and the Dana Discovery Center, in 1993.[8][9] Two others: a new tennis house and a new restaurant on Harlem Meer were proposed but not built.

Principal architectural works

Written works

Among the written works of architects who at one time or another were associates or partners at Buttrick White & Burtis are the following:

  • William W. Braham. Modern Color/Modern Architecture: Amédée Ozenfant and the Genealogy of Color in Modern Architecture (London: Ashgate, 2002).
  • William W. Braham. Rethinking Technology: A Reader in Architectural Theory (Routledge, 2007).
  • William W. Braham. Architecture and Energy: Performance and Style (Routledge, 2013).
  • William W. Braham. Energy Accounts: Architectural Representations of Energy, Climate, and the Future (Routledge, 2016).
  • Michael Dwyer, ed., with preface by Mark Rockefeller. Great Houses of the Hudson River (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 2001).
  • Michael Dwyer, with a foreword by Mario Buatta. Carolands (Redwood City, CA: San Mateo County Historical Association, 2006).
  • Jean Parker Phifer. Public Art New York (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009).
  • Samuel G. White. The Houses of McKim, Mead & White (New York: Rizzoli, 1998).
  • Samuel G. White and Elizabeth White. McKim, Mead & White: The Masterworks (New York: Rizzoli, 2003).
  • Samuel G. White and Elizabeth White. Stanford White Architect (New York: Rizzoli, 2008).
  • Samuel G. White. Nice House (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2010).
  • Samuel G. White. Stanford White in Detail (New York: The Monacelli Press, 2020).

References

  1. ↑ "Postings," The New York Times, October 20, 2002.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Carter Wiseman, "Light-Up Time," New York Magazine, February 25, 1985.
  3. 1 2 Joseph Giovannini, "Young Voices Soar at the New St. Thomas Choir School," The New York Times, September 17, 1987.
  4. ↑ Paul Sachner, "Perfect Pitch," Architectural Record, November 1987, page 116.
  5. ↑ Kenneth A. Lohf, "Appendix Two, The Saint Thomas Choir School" in J. Robert Wright (principal author), Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue (2001).
  6. ↑ Paul Goldberger (June 29, 1990). "Four projects honored for design". The New York Times. Retrieved September 17, 2023.
  7. ↑ Patricia Leigh Brown, "Architecture's Young Old Fogies," The New York Times, February 9, 1995.
  8. ↑ "Learning by the y 1993" (PDF). Progressive Architecture. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  9. ↑ Elizabeth Barlow Rogers (editor); Jean Parker Phifer (author)."The Saviors of Central Park: Part Six: Architectural Renewal," Journal: A Forum for Diary Entries, Essays, Observations, Poetry, News, and Reviews, (June 4, 2025). (Retrieved March 22, 2026). Among the architects listed were Phifer, Harold Buttrick, Michael Dwyer, Samuel White, and William Braham.
  10. ↑ NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, Guide to New York City Landmarks, 2009, page 18.
  11. ↑ Chris Morris, "Tower Flexes Muscle in LA," Billboard, December 6, 1986.
  12. ↑ Elizabeth Stagg, "This Year's Look in New Store Design," Billboard, March 15, 1986.
  13. ↑ "St. Thomas Choir School," Progressive Architecture, March 1992 (Supplemental Issue).
  14. ↑ Purnick, Joyce (March 27, 1985). "FOR A HISTORIC PLAZA, PEARS AND LIMES?". The New York Times. Retrieved February 5, 2019.
  15. ↑ Paul Goldberger, "A Restored Grand Army Plaza," The New York Times, June 28, 1990.
  16. ↑ Suzanne Stephens, "Currents; Snack Stand for Central Park Ball Field" The New York Times, July 12, 1990.
  17. 1 2 Branch, Mark Alden (August 1991). "Flirting with Folly in Central Park" (PDF). Progressive Architecture. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  18. ↑ Shawn G. Kennedy, "Private Schools Turn To Reconstruction," The New York Times, October 13, 1991.
  19. 1 2 Michael M. Dwyer, "Building With Stone," Traditional Building, March 1996, page 25.
  20. ↑ Lee Goff, Stone Built: Contemporary American Houses (New York: Monacelli Press, 1997).
  21. ↑ Arcidi, Philip (December 1993). "Learning by the Rules" (PDF). Progressive Architecture. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  22. ↑ Marjorie Kaufman, "Artist's Homestead Restored With Care," The New York Times, May 2, 1993.
  23. ↑ Paul Goldberger, "Bonnie Dune Revisited," Architectural Digest, August 1995.
  24. ↑ Jay Johnson, Jed Johnson: Opulent Restraint (New York: Rizzoli, 2005).
  25. ↑ Christopher Gray, "A Matter of Reconciling Preservation with Patina," The New York Times, February 27, 1994.
  26. ↑ Kim Van Duzer, "Casa Italiana to Open Doors," Columbia Daily Spectator, January 31, 1996.
  27. ↑ "A Student Center for Sarah Lawrence," The New York Times, March 22, 1998.
  28. ↑ "Trinity School: Gyms Upstairs and Down," The New York Times, May 18, 1997.
  29. ↑ AIA guide to New York City. 2010. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
  30. ↑ "A Building for Marymount School," The New York Times, July 9, 2000.
  31. ↑ Nadine Brozan, "On CUNY's Campuses, The Subject Is Change," The New York Times, September 7, 2000.
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