Flagg, Ernest

Flagg, Ernest,

1857–1947, American architect, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. The 45-story Singer Building in New York City, which he built in 1908, marked a revolutionary height. Flagg's other works include the Scribner Building, New York City, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and numerous residences. In magazine articles and in his book, Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922), Flagg advocated various structural economies and innovations. These include a method of house planning on a module basis and model tenement housing. He wrote also Le Naos du Parthenon (1928, in French and English), a study in Greek units of proportion.

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Flagg, Ernest

(1857–1947)

American-born architect; New York City. Practitioner of the Beaux-Arts style. Designed the Singer Building in 1899 and Singer Tower in 1908, New York City; and the U.S. Naval Academy in 1908, Annapolis, MD.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Flagg, Ernest

(1857–1947) architect; born in Brooklyn, N.Y. In his New York practice (established 1891) he promoted American adoption of Beaux-Arts principles, pioneered tenement housing with his influential light-court plan (1894), and developed small-house design and wrote Small Houses (1922).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.