This is not a Wikipedia article: It is an individual user's work-in-progress page, and may be incomplete and/or unreliable.For guidance on developing this draft, see Wikipedia:So you made a userspace draft.
Finished writing a draft article? Are you ready to request an experienced editor review it for possible inclusion in Wikipedia? Submit your draft for review!
The Francis Buttrick LibraryinWaltham, designed by Loring & Leland and completed in 1915.The Kennebunk Town Hall, designed by Joseph D. Leland and completed in 1921.The New Hampshire Savings Bank BuildinginConcord, New Hampshire, designed by J. D. Leland & Company and completed in 1927.The former Worcester Pressed Steel Company offices and Higgins Armory MuseuminWorcester, designed by J. D. Leland & Company and completed in 1931.The Great Hall of the former Higgins Armory Museum.The Clifton Merriman Post Office BuildinginCambridge, designed by J. D. Leland & Company and Charles R. Greco and completed in 1935.The former Lexington Fire Department headquarters, designed by Leland & Larsen and completed in 1946.The James Wheelock Clark Library of Russell Sage College, designed by Leland & Larsen and completed in 1953.The former Boston Herald-Traveler building, designed by Leland, Larsen, Bradley & Hibbard and completed in 1959.The Hafer Academic Building of Curry College, designed by Larsen, Bradley & Hibbard and completed in 1965.
Leland & Larsen was an American architectural firm active in Boston, under several names, from 1919 to circa 1973.
On two occassions, in 1916 and 1922, Leland was offered the office of Schoolhouse Commissioner by May James M. Curley, but he declined both times.
As a young architect, Leland gained a reputation as a designer of worker housing. Before World War I Loring & Leland designed worker housing for the Whitin Machine WorksinWhitinsville and for the American Optical CompanyinSouthbridge, Massachusetts. In 1917 Loring & Leland were selected as architects for Hilton VillageinNewport News, Virginia, the first planned Federal housing development in the United States. In 1918 he was appointed assistant director of the Department of Labor's Bureau of Industrial Housing and Transportation under Otto M. Eidlitz.[1] With Leland thus busy and Loring serving in the A. E. F., the project was completed by another architect, Francis Y. Joannes.[2] When the United States Housing Corporation was formed later the same year, Leland was appointed vice president.[3] In 1919 both men returned to Boston and dissolved their partnership.[4] Among Leland's first independent works was a group of sixty houses for the Worcester Housing Corporation in Worcester, Massachusetts, commissioned in 1919.[5]
After two years as a sole practitioner, in 1921 Leland reorganized his office as J. D. Leland & Company, with partners Michael A. Dyer (1886-1954), Niels H. Larsen (1885-1974), Maurice Feather (1886-1963), James H. Stone (1889-1928)[a] and George F. Temple (1872-1956).[6] Of these, Larsen and Feather would remain with the Leland office for the rest of their careers.
Niels Hjalmar Larsen was born May 17, 1885 in Copenhagen, Denmark. His family immigrated to the United States in 1891 and settled in Boston. He became a citizen in 1899. He was educated in the Boston public schools. In 1902 he joined the office of Boston architect Luther C. Greenleaf as a draftsman, and worked while also studying architecture in the classes offered by the Boston Architectural Club. He moved to the office of Coolidge & Shattuck in 1907 and to Parker, Thomas & Rice in 1908. That year he was awarded a scholarship to Harvard University, where he studied in 1908 and 1909. In 1911 he was awarded the Rotch Travelling Scholarship, administered by the Boston Society of Architects, which enabled him to travel and study in Europe for two years. Upon his return to the United States he rejoined Parker, Thomas & Rice as their chief designer. He joined the Leland office in 1919.
Maurice Feather was born March 23, 1886 in Bingley, West Yorkshire, England. His family later immigrated to the United States, settling in Waltham, Massachusetts, where he attended the public schools. He was educated at Harvard University, earning an SB in 1907 and an SM in 1908. After graduation he was awarded the Nelson Robinson Jr. Travelling Fellowship in 1911, which enabled him to travel and study, like Larsen, in Europe. After his return to Boston he worked for Maginnis & Walsh, Bigelow & Wadsworth, Parker, Thomas & Rice and R. Clipston Sturgis before joining the Leland office in 1921.
In 1935, after the departure of the other partners, the firm was renamed Leland & Larsen. It was composed of partners Leland, Larsen and Feather. In 1954 Leland & Larsen merged with Bradley & Hibbard, the firm of John F. Bradley and Charles L. Hibbard Jr., forming Leland, Larsen, Bradley & Hibbard. At this time Leland retired as an active partner but was retained as a consultant. In 1959 the name of the firm became Larsen, Bradley & Hibbard with Leland's full retirement. Leland died in 1968.
In 1961, with the addition of Edwin T. Steffian, it became Larsen, Steffian, Bradley & Hibbard, but returned to its former name when Steffian left in 1962. Feather, whose name had always been left out of the firm's name, died in 1963. In 1965, with the addition of Donald L. Gillespie and the withdrawl of Hibbard, it was renamed Larsen, Bradley, Gillespie & Associates. In 1967, Gillespie left and Larsen retired from the partnership, leaving Bradley as the sole partner of Larsen, Bradley & Associates. In 1970 the firm was renamed a last time to Larsen & Bradley Associates. It is listed in the Boston directories only as late at 1973, being absent in 1974.[6] Larsen died in 1974, and Bradley in 1990.
^"Recreation Buildings for Officers and Men at the National Army Cantonments" in Architectural Forum 29, no. 2 (August 1918): 41-48.
^Walter A. Nebiker and David Chase, Historic and Architectural Resources of Jamestown, Rhode Island (Providence: Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission, 1995): 100.
^"WOR.774." mhc-macris.net. Massachusetts Historical Commission, n. d. Accessed January 21, 2022.