Background
Francis R. Allen was born in 1843 in Boston.
Francis R. Allen was born in 1843 in Boston.
Mr. Allen was graduated at the age of twenty from Amherst College. Some years later, in 1876, he decided to make Architecture his life-work, and began professional study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On completing M.I, T.’s two-year course, he studied for two more years in the Atlier Vaudremer at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, returning to Boston in 1879.
After college he entered the office of a commercial firm in the city. Shortly after his arrival from the studies at Atlier Vaudremer at the Ecole des Beaux Arts Mr. Allen opened an office in his native city, later joined Arthur Kenway in partnership under the firm name of Allen & Kenway and continued practice in that association until 1890. In the next phase of his career he carried on his work independently until 1904, when the firm of Allen & Collens was organized, and with Charles Collens maintained a large and successful practice over a period of twenty years. The firm won wide recognition in designing numerous public buildings of varied types.
Mead Memorial Chapel and Middlebury (Vermont) College
(Memorial Chapel (1903) and eight buildings on the campus ...)
the Riverside Church, New York
(Built for John D. Rockefeller, Jr., completed in 1929 (in...)
Union Theological Seminary
(New York, 1906)
Andover Theological Seminary, Cambridge, Mass
Mr. Allen had been an active member of the Boston Society of Architects, A.I.A. since early in his career, and in 1895 was advanced to Institute Fellowship.