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Shipway (Verna Cook) Papers
MSS 0105  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Biography
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information

  • Descriptive Summary

    Languages: English
    Contributing Institution: Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego
    9500 Gilman Drive
    La Jolla 92093-0175
    Title: Verna Cook Shipway Papers
    Identifier/Call Number: MSS 0105
    Physical Description: 7 Linear feet (6 archives boxes, 5 flat boxes, and 53 map case folders)
    Date (inclusive): 1894 -1979
    Abstract: Papers of Verna Cook Shipway, American architect and author. Shipway designed homes in New York state and California, and wrote, with her husband Warren Shipway, five books on contemporary Mexican residential architecture and interior design.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    Papers of Verna Cook Shipway, American architect and author. Shipway designed homes in New York state and California, and wrote, with her husband Warren Shipway, five books on contemporary Mexican residential architecture and interior design. The papers include correspondence, travel diaries, sketches, plans and photographs of her homes and details of interiors, and measured drawings of furniture details. Also included are manuscript materials, photographs and paste-ups for her books.
    Arranged in four series: 1) BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS, 2) CORRESPONDENCE, 3) WRITINGS, and 4) ARCHITECTURAL DESIGNS.

    Biography

    Verna Cook Shipway was born October 19, 1890, in Spokane, Washington. She attended the Ecole Speciale d'Architecture in Paris and the School of Architecture at Columbia University, where she met and married fellow architecture student Edgar Salomonsky. They founded an architectural firm in 1920. When Edgar died in 1929, Verna continued to run the business on her own, specializing in Georgian, colonial and English style homes. She published a study of American furniture entitled Masterpieces of Furniture Design (1931).
    Shipway designed homes built in numerous New York suburbs including Berkley and Scarsdale. In 1936, she was selected to design the first "Ideal House" for House and Garden magazine. In 1939, Shipway designed a model home for the New York World's Fair that was practical and affordable for the American family in the suburbs. Her home designs featured abundant closet space, natural light, circular staircases, bay windows, large hallways, and light-colored walls to make rooms appear larger.
    In the 1940s, Verna Salomonsky married Warren Butler Shipway, an architectural engineer, and moved to California in 1947. During a tour to Mexico, the Shipways met a builder who encouraged them to write a book on Mexican architecture. Warren documented the construction of homes and took photographs, while Verna noted the planning and design and drew sketches. Together they published five books on Mexican architecture and design: The Mexican House, Old and New (1960), Mexican Interiors (1962), Mexican Homes of Today (1964), Decorative Design in Mexican Homes (1966), and Houses of Mexico: Origins and Traditions (1970).
    After the death of her husband in 1972, Shipway moved to La Jolla, California, where she died in 1978.

    Publication Rights

    Publication rights are held by the creator of the collection.

    Preferred Citation

    Verna Cook Shipway Papers. MSS 105. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego.

    Acquisition Information

    Acquired 1978.

    Subjects and Indexing Terms

    Photographic prints -- 20th century
    Interior decoration -- Mexico
    Women architects -- United States
    Architecture, Domestic -- Mexico
    Architecture -- United States -- 20th century
    Architecture, Domestic -- California -- Designs and plans
    Architecture, Domestic -- United States -- Designs and plans
    Architecture, Domestic -- United States
    Architectural drawings (visual works)
    Solomonsky, Edgar
    Shipway, Verna Cook, 1890-1978 -- Archives
    New York World's Fair (1939-1940 : New York, N.Y.)