The projects in this collection represent the history of a firm that lasted nearly a century. The roots of the firm can be traced back to Hermann J. Schwarzmann, a German-born architect who designed the Philadelphia Centennial of 1876. Schwarzmann soon partnered with Albert Buchman and practiced with him until 1887. Unfortunately no drawings survive from the two earliest firms. This collection begins with records from the partnership of Buchman & Deisler (circa 1888-1899), followed by a succession of partnerships until the dissolution of the firm: Buchman & Fox (1899-1917), Buchman & Kahn (1917-1930), Ely Jacques Kahn Architects (1930-1940), and Kahn & Jacobs (1940-1973). The bulk of the collection documents the firms' work from 1893 until 1950. The collection includes approximately 8,250 architectural drawings for projects located primarily in New York City that were designed or altered by Kahn & Jacobs and the various predecessor partnerships. Major projects include the Bergdorf Goodman Department Store (1927); Bloomingdale's Department Store (1903-1917); the Bonwit Teller Department Store at Fifth Avenue and 38th Street (1911); the Film Center building (1928-1932); the original New York Times Building at 42nd Street and Broadway (1915-1920); and the Squibb Building (1929-1951), all in New York City. Researchers will also find drawings for the Oppenheimer-Collins Company buildings in Brooklyn (1915-1928), New York City (1906-1930), Philadelphia (1923), and Pittsburgh (1919-1928).

Papers consist primarily of Smith's files relating to his architectural work containing correspondence with clients, colleagues, contractors, suppliers, and others, with related bills, notes, receipts, accounts, estimates, specifications, time sheets, progress reports, and architectural drawings. Also, portrait photographs of young people (possibly classmates?) in Rochester, N.Y. and Evanston, Ill., circa late 19th century; a class roll card, 1901, for a class taught by Smith at the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen, New York; a memo book, undated, containing miscellaneous accounts, sketches, memoranda; correspondence, 1890s, between Ella Smith (Smith's mother) and Lucien Smith and other family members, Rochester, N.Y., and Elmhurst, Ill.; account book, 1891-1902, of Mrs. H. V. (Ella) Smith, Rochester, N.Y.; calling cards, invitations, photographs, letters, bills, receipts, and other, miscellaneous personal documents; student drawings made by Smith when at Columbia University's School of Architecture; drawings for a proposed "academy of art and archaeology" in Rome, 1905-1906; and drawings for Malvina Hoffman's house and studio in New York City.

Architectural drawings and photographs of buildings designed by the firm dating approximately from its founding to the 1950s. Among those represented are buildings at the World's Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, 1893; Pennsylvania Railroad Station, New York, 1906-1910; restoration, 1903, of the White House, Washington, D.C.; buildings at Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus, New York; Boston Public Library, Boston, Mass.; E.W. Morgan mansion; Municipal Building, N.Y.; Col. Elliott Shepherd House, Scarborough, N.Y.; buildings at Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.; Bellevue Hospital, New York; various New York City residences; and others. Also included are competition drawings for the New York Public Library; miscellaneous drawings and sketches; photographs of the partners and of other members of the firm; lists of the firm's work; clippings of articles about the firm; lists of the firm's employees; billing records, 1953-1955; account books, 1940s-1950s; bank books, 1895-1955; award certificates; and other office miscellany.

Architectural drawings and specifications for Codman's projects, circa 1890s-1930s, including the Martha Codman house in Washington, D.C.; alterations for Edith Wharton and her husband at their three residences, the Mount in Lenox, Mass., Land's End in Newport, R.I., and their Park Avenue home in New York City; work for the Thayer family of Boston, Mass., specifically Nathaniel Thayer's three homes in Boston, Lancaster, Mass., and Newport, R.I. ("Edgemere"), Bernard Thayer's Beacon Hill houyse in Boston, and Eugene Van Rensselaer Thayer's two houses in Boston and Lancaster, Mass.; the Lucy Dahlgren house in New York City; the Archer M. Huntington house on Fifth Avenue in New York City; interior design for John D. Rockefeller in his house "Kykuit" at Pocantico Hills, N.Y.; interior design work for the Vanderbilt family including Cornelius Vanderbilt's "Breakers" at Newport, R.I. and Frederick William Vanderbilt's mansion in Hyde Park, N.Y. and his house on Fifth Avenue in New York City; Oliver Ames' mansion at Pride's Crossing, Beverly, Mass., and his house in Boston; and interior decoration and alterations for Codman's own homes in Newport, R.I. and Roslyn, N.Y. and his villa in France, "La Leopolda", at Villefranche-sur-Mer. Also, lists, descriptions, and postcards of French chateaux, with related correspondence, circa 1900s-1930s, relating to Codman's bibliography on the chateaux of France; and miscellaneous lists of houses in England and France, correspondence, and printed material.