Background
Edwin Seamer Gordon was born in 1867 at Rochester, New York, United States.
Edwin Seamer Gordon was born in 1867 at Rochester, New York, United States.
He was educated in the city schools and received a rudimentary training in architecture at the Rochester Academy and the Mechanics Institute.
At the age of eighteen he entered the local office of Fay & Dyer and after a few years of practical training there, practiced in successive periods with Claude Bragdon, William Orchard and J. Foster Warner, remaining with Mr. Warner eight years. In 1902 he formed a partnership with the late William Madden (see) and until 1913 continued that association. Subsequently Mr. Kaelber became a member of the office, and following Mr. Madden's retirement in 1918, the firm of Gordon & Kaelber was established.
During a career of more than thirty years, Mr. Gordon with his partners designed many buildings of note, comprising hospitals, churches, schools and other public edifices, also industrial plants. Under the name of Gordon & Madden his most important works were the Corpus Christi Church, St. Peter and Paul Church, and the Blessed Sacrament Church in Rochester; St. Stephen's Church at Geneva, N. Y. St. Mary's Church at Canandaigua, N.Y., and various other ecclesiastical and residential buildings. In the period between 1915 and 1918 Gordon, Madden & Kaelber were architects of the Rochester General Hospital; the Dental Dispensary; Knights of Columbus Building, all in Rochester, together with schools, churches and private homes.
During later years the firm of Gordon & Kaelber received wide recognition in the planning and execution of many important architectural projects in Rochester, outstanding examples of which were the Eastman Kodak Building; Spencer Ripley Methodist Church; the Salem Evangelical Church; the Rundel Memorial Building (Public Library), the first unit of the Civic Center Group; Park Avenue Hospital; the General, the Municipal and the Genessee Hospitals; the Benjamin Franklin High, the Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe High Schools, and many Grammar School buildings; also the First and Second Churches of Christ Scientist. One of the firm's most important achievements was the entire development of the Campus Plan for the University of Rochester, together with the Man’s College, Cutler Union Building and the Women’s College.