Our new architecture digital collection

Do you have an interest in North Carolina architecture?  Do you like looking at original drawings in your pajamas?  Do you enjoy checking out what buildings were designed in the early 20th century?

If so, we have a new digital collection website for you!

http://d.lib.ncsu.edu/collections?redirect=true&f%5bispartof_facet%5d%5b%5d=Beaux+Arts+to+Modernism

Rendering for the Grove Arcade in Asheville, NC by architect Charles Parker

The Special Collections Research Center in the North Carolina State University Libraries has finalized a project digitizing resources on early twentieth century architecture in North Carolina.  Currently available in the Built Environment Digital Collection website are

  • 8,000+ archival architectural drawings
  • 700 photographs
  • 1,000 North Carolina buildings represented
  • 1900 - 1950s time period

We are making publicly accessible materials that document a time period of wide expansion of the architecture profession and rapid urban development and social change in North Carolina.  Landmark buildings such as Raleigh’s Dorton Arena and the Asheville’s Grove Arcade are included in the collection, as well as more pedestrian buildings, such as hospitals, schools, factories, and grocery stores that structured the built environment of everyday North Carolinians in the early twentieth century.  Many of the buildings represented still stand today.

Black River Hunting Club Lodge by architect Leslie Boney

Architects’ work represented include

  • Louis Asbury
  • William H. Deitrick
  • Douglas Ellington
  • Northup & O'Brien
  • Matthew Nowicki
  • Charles Parker
  • Richard Sharp Smith

Drawings of other architects are also available.

H.L. Merritt House designed by the architecture firm Northup & O'Brien

The initial images digitized for this website were done as part of “Beaux Arts to Modernism: Early Twentieth Century Architecture in North Carolina,” a project partially funded by a federal Library Services and Technology Act grant as administered by the State Library of North Carolina.  The project was done in partnership with the J. Murrey Atkins Library at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, the North Carolina State Archives, and the Asheville Art Museum.  Images will continue to be added to the site periodically.