author
Charles Donagh Maginnis
1867–1955
An Irish-born architect who helped define the look of American churches and college campuses, he brought a rich Gothic style to buildings meant to inspire as well as serve. His work left a lasting mark on Boston College, the National Shrine in Washington, and many other landmarks across the United States.
1 Audiobook
Pen Drawing: An Illustrated Treatise
by Charles Donagh Maginnis
About the author
Born in Derry on January 7, 1867, Charles Donagh Maginnis studied in Dublin and at the South Kensington Museum School of Art in London before coming to North America as a young man. He settled in Boston in the 1880s, trained in architectural offices there, and gradually built a reputation for thoughtful, historically informed design.
Maginnis is best known for the firm Maginnis & Walsh, which became one of the leading American practices for ecclesiastical and collegiate architecture. He played a major role in shaping the Collegiate Gothic look that spread across U.S. campuses, and his best-known commissions include Gasson Hall and the early campus of Boston College, as well as work on the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. His buildings were admired for combining grandeur with a strong sense of purpose.
His influence reached beyond his drawings. Maginnis wrote and spoke about architecture as a public art with moral and civic meaning, and he served as president of the American Institute of Architects from 1937 to 1939. He died on February 15, 1955, but his buildings still stand as some of the clearest expressions of American Gothic Revival architecture.