Claude Fayette Bragdon

Claude Fayette Bragdon (1866–1946) was an American architect.

Although born in Ohio, Bragdon's principal work was in the Rochester, New York area. He was most proud of his design of Rochester's New York Central Railroad Station, the Rochester First Universalist Church, and the Rochester Italian Presbyterian Church, among many others. Unfortunately, in 1917, after a dispute with photography magnate George Eastman (of Eastman Kodak fame) over the design of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce Building, Bragdon's architectural practice waned. He moved to New York City in 1923 and became a stage designer, and remained in New York until his death in 1946. In his books on architectural theory, The Beautiful Necessity (1910), Architecture and Democracy (1918), and The Frozen Fountain (1938), he advocated a theosophical approach to building design, urging an "organic" Gothic style (which he thought of as reflective of the natural order) over the "arranged" modern abstract style that was coming into its own in the early 20th Century.

External link

• Works by Claude Fayette Bragdon at Project Gutenberg