Alfred Morton Githens

After fifty-six [sic: fifty-seven] years as a Centurion, Alfred Morton Githens died two days before his ninety-seventh birthday in Laguna Beach, California, where he had lived for some twenty years. He was born in Philadelphia in 1876, the son of William H. H. Githens, M.D., and Frances Adelle Stotesbury Githens, where he attended Episcopal Boys Academy and the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1896 with the degree of B.S. in Architecture and a Stewartson Scholarship for study at the American Academy in Rome. Following this he spent two years at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris.

On his return to this country, he worked at McKim, Mead, and White, and later with Charles C. Haight, eventually as a partner. After Mr. Haight’s death, he became associated with William A. Boring and Edward L. Tilton, finally becoming sole owner of that firm.

While practicing with Mr. Tilton, he became particularly interested in library design, since Mr. Tilton had done many Carnegie libraries. After Mr. Tilton’s death, he continued his interest, eventually becoming widely sought after as a consultant in that field. In 1926 his design for the Wilmington Public Library received the prize of the American Institute of Architects for the finest monumental building of that year.

He continued designing into his eighties. Among his prominent buildings are: the Brooklyn Public Library; the Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore; the University of Georgia, Athens; as well as libraries in Girard College, Philadelphia; Peabody College, Nashville; Mount Vernon, New York, and Scarsdale, New York, to name a few. He also did many other public buildings: the Natural History Museum and the Art Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts; the Currier Gallery of Art and the United States Post Office in Manchester, New Hampshire; the Concord Public Library, New Hampshire; the Supreme Court and Hall of Records, Richmond, Virginia; as well as several buildings at the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee.

He authored a section on library architecture for Collier’s Encyclopedia, and was co-author with Dr. J. L. Wheeler, librarian of the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, of The American Public Library Building, published for the Carnegie Foundation.

Mr. Githens taught architecture for a time at Columbia University, and was the visiting critic of design at Princeton University Graduate School of Architecture. He was also a Fellow Emeritus of the American Institute of Architects.

It is interesting to note that all his former partners were Centurions.

His ashes are buried in the small cemetery on the campus of Bard College at Annandale-on-Hudson.

Alfred S. Githens (not a member)
1980 Century Association Yearbook