Background
John Gurd was born in 1870 at Moline, Illinois, United States, he spent his early life with his parents in Canada .
John Gurd was born in 1870 at Moline, Illinois, United States, he spent his early life with his parents in Canada .
In 1893 he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a course of technical study. Later he studied architecture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and was awarded his diploma.
In 1897 joined M. Laloux in his Atlier to collaborate on plans of the U. S Government Building for the Paris Exposition of 1900.
For more than twenty years Mr. Gurd carried on an independent practice in New York. Notable examples of the public buildings he designed were the attractive school at Englewood Cliffs, N.J.; the Pavonia Branch Library at Jersey City, and a number of country houses on Long Island and in New Jersey In addition to architectural work he devoted considerable time to teaching Design and allied subjects at Pratt Institute and the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, and was also an artist of ability particularly in the field of water color.