Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison


Kenneth MacKenzie Murchison, Jr. was a prominent American Beaux-Arts and Gothic Revival architect.

Early life

He was born in Brooklyn, New York City in 1872. Murchison graduated from Columbia University in 1894 and from the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France, in 1900.

Career

Two years after graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts, he opened an office in New York where his first major commissions were for railroad stations for the Pennsylvania Railroad company. Among the stations he designed are the Delaware Lackawanna Station, Hoboken, New Jersey; both the Lackawanna Terminal and the Lehigh Valley Terminal in Buffalo, New York, and Pennsylvania Station, Baltimore, Maryland.
In New York, he was well known as one of the founders of the Beaux Arts Balls, elaborate costume parties benefiting architects who had fallen on hard times. He also was a founder of the Mendelsohn Glee Club. At the time of his death, he had started work on a new Dunes Club to replace the one destroyed a few months earlier.

Personal life

On April 5, 1902, Murchison was married to Aurelie de Mauriac. The family lived in the Beaux Arts Apartments, which he designed, at 310 E. 44th St. Together, they were the parents of two daughters:
Murchison died suddenly, at 11:45 p.m. on December 15, 1938, "as he was emerging from the I.R.T. station in Grand Central Terminal", The New York Times reported.

Buildings

He also designed: