William G. Tachau
American architect

William Gabriel Tachau, AIA, (April 1875 – January 1969), was an American architect active in early- to mid-twentieth-century New York City. With Lewis Pilcher, he was a partner in the architectural firm of Pilcher & Tachau from 1904 to 1919 when he established the firm of Tachau & Vought. Both firms from 1918 onward specialized in mental hygiene hospitals. The firm moved from 109 Lexington Avenue to 102 East 30th Street around 1923 and remained at that address and that name even after Vought left.
Early life and education
Tachau was born in April 1875 in Louisville, Kentucky where he attended high school and later designed the Louisville Library. He earned a Ph.B. from Columbia University in 1896, and a Diplome
Ecoles des Beaux Arts in 1903. His uncle was banker Elkan Naumburg.
Practice
He worked as a draftsman from 1896 to 1897 in the architectural firm of Lamb and Rich, as a designer for the architectural firm of Herts & Tallant in 1898, 1903 and 1904, and was briefly chief of design for Albert Kelsey in 1903. He joined Lewis Pilcher around 1904 forming Pilcher and Tachau. Like many New York architectural firms active during the Great Depression, Tachau and Vought worked in "almost continuous employment on Federal, State or City work," as they were included on Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia's list of architects, since its inception.
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This entry incorporates text from “William G. Tachau” 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.