Hugh Ferriss (1889-1962) was an architectural renderer known for his vision of the modern city and his ability to translate vast projects into dramatic but clear-cut images. Ferriss published two books: The Metropolis of Tomorrow (1929) and Power of Buildings (1953). The collection was donated to Avery Library by Ferriss' family after his death, and has been supplemented by several later additions from other sources. 363 original drawings in the collection have been photographed and digitized and can be viewed via links in the finding aid's container listing.

Max Abramovitz (1908-2004) was an American architect, whose firm Harrison & Abramovitz was one of the leading architectural practices in post-war America. Major commissions include Lincoln Center's Philharmonic Hall and the United Nations complex. The collection contains over 14,500 drawings, over 5,000 photographs, 24 boxes of manuscript material, 7 boxes of oversize material, 23 boxes of financial records, 5 boxes of reprint tear sheets, 36.75 linear feet of specification notebooks, photo albums, sketchbooks, art and artifacts.

Robert Allan Jacobs (1905-1993) was an American architect and designer active in the United States from the 1930s until his retirement in the early 1980s. His work consists primarily of commercial projects, including numerous skyscrapers in New York City, along with a richly varied corpus of other institutional, residential, and commercial projects--primarily centered in New York City and its surrounding suburbs but ranging as far afield as South Africa and the Dominican Republic. The son of the notable Beaux-Arts architect Harry Allan Jacobs, Robert Allan Jacobs was educated at Amherst College and the Columbia University School of Architecture. Jacobs began his career as a disciple of Le Corbusier, went on to serve as a designer and draftsman for Harrison & Fouilhoux, and then formed a partnership with Ely Jacques Kahn in 1941--thus commencing three decades of pioneering collaborative design work that would leave an indelible mark on the Manhattan skyline. Together, Kahn & Jacobs made their debut with the Municipal Asphalt Plant in 1941 and went on to design such iconic projects as 100 Park Avenue (1944), the Universal Pictures Building (1947), 1407 Broadway (1950), 425 Park Avenue (1957), the Seagram Building (in collaboration with Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson, 1958), the Astor Plaza Building (in collaboration with Carson & Lundin, 1961), the New York Telephone Building (1969), and One Astor Place (1970).