MBB Architects
American architectural design firm
MBB Architects is an architectural design firm based in New York City, known for the preservation and renewal of historical and culturally significant buildings such as St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trinity Church Wall Street, and Park Avenue Synagogue. Founding partners Jeffrey Murphy, Mary Burnham, and Harold Buttrick (formerly of Buttrick, White and Burtis) established the firm as Murphy, Burnham & Buttrick in 1998. Now a women-owned firm, MBB had, as of 2020, approximately 30 employees.
Notable projects
In 2015, MBB completed a 10-year, $177 million restoration and renovation of St. Patrick's Cathedral in midtown Manhattan, including the addition of a geothermal heating and cooling system. New York Magazine's architecture critic, Justin Davidson, wrote that “The result is so conspicuously glorious that it makes Rockefeller Center look suddenly shabby by comparison.” According to Davidson, “The most impressive tasks aren’t even visible: replacing the entire cooling and heating system and hooking them up to geothermal wells that have been sunk up to 2,200 feet below Manhattan’s asphalt crust.”
In 2025, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission moved to new offices and public meeting spaces in the historic Home Life Building, renovated by MBB to include a wood-ceilinged hearing room and "pointillist supergraphics of notable landmarks on conference room walls." One critic praised the "light and internal transparency" of the public areas The chair of the commission, Sarah Carroll, said the design "highlights how New York’s historic buildings can be thoughtfully updated to meet modern needs."
In 2021, the firm completed a three-year restoration and renovation of Trinity Church Wall Street, which The New York Times called “a shining example of stewardship.” In addition to restoring the historic interiors and uncovering hidden windows, the project improved the church's accessibility, acoustics and energy performance. According to Traditional Building Magazine, "One of the more innovative designs involves the ADA lift, which is seamlessly tucked behind a pair of movable sedilia chairs on the chancel." MBB also renovated the historic Park Avenue Synagogue in collaboration with Judaica expert Amy Reichert.
In 2017 the firm renovated the historic Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn, which U.S. President Joe Biden later called "an incredible place" that is "nurturing a new generation of Black playwrights, performers." Notable education design projects include NYU Abu Dhabi Institute at 19 Washington Square North in New York City; Public School 330 in Queens, New York City, built around a glass-enclosed “gymnatorium”; a rooftop athletic center addition to the Grace Church School; an educational green roof at PS 41 Greenwich Village School; and the renovation and expansion of St. Hilda's & St.
“MBB Architects” enters the record as american architectural design firm. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Architects, American and architectural can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“MBB Architects” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Architects, American and architectural provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q117790405. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1998, 2020, 2015 and 2025.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “MBB Architects”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow MBB Architects primary sources, MBB Architects archive and Architects research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “MBB Architects”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “MBB Architects” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.