Personal Papers
The Personal Papers consists of a small biographical file compiled by Birkerts and his wife, Birkert's first architectural drawings; his student notebooks and drawings, and a small group of family photographs. Birkerts first two architectural drawings, renderings of a gas station and house, produced when he was 17 years of age, document his early understanding of modern architecture in 1942. The course notebooks and project drawings, completed while Birkerts was a student at the Technische Hochschule from 1944 to 1949, illuminate the educational foundation of his architectural career and show his incipient interest in furniture as well as building design. Two important photographs of Birkerts with his mother in Riga at the ages of four and five are also found in this series.