Alfred Zucker

Alfred J. R. E. Zucker (January 23, 1852 – August 2, 1913)^[1] was a German-American architect, who worked in Galveston, Texas, Mississippi, New York City, and Buenos Aires.

Alfred Zucker was born on January 23, 1852, in the town of Freiburg, Silesia, Prussia (since 1945 Świebodzice, Poland). He was educated at the Hannover Polytechnische Schule and the Bauakademie. He worked briefly for the government before immigrating to the United States in 1872, arriving at New York. From 1873 to 1876 he worked in the Office of the Supervising Architect, in Washington, D.C.^[2]

In 1877, Zucker relocated to the coastal city of Galveston. There, he became the partner of John Moser (1832-1904), an architect who moved there from Toledo, Ohio.^[3] Zucker married Moser's daughter, Augusta ("Gussie") Emilia Moser.^[4] She died in 1878 in the yellow fever epidemic in Vicksburg, Mississippi, just three months after their marriage.^[5] Zucker had left to establish a branch office of the firm in Vicksburg. The partnership lasted until 1880, when Moser relocated to Atlanta.^[6] By virtue of the firm's design for the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College at Starkville, Zucker was appointed State Architect of Mississippi. Due to his poor health, Zucker resigned from his position in 1882 and returned to Europe. The following year, he returned to New York and found work in the office of noted architect Henry Fernbach. Upon Fernbach's death that same year, Zucker founded the firm of Alfred Zucker & Company, with John R. Hinchman as his partner. This association lasted until 1889, after which both Zucker and Hinchman practiced alone. From 1891 to 1893 Zucker employed John H. Edelmann as a designer in his office. Edelmann is known to have designed full buildings for Zucker, most prominently the Decker Building. Edelmann left after 1893, but his work inspired Zucker's later designs until at least 1901.

After 1896, there was less and less work in Zucker's office. As a cost-saving measure, in 1897 he made several employees partners in the firm. These former employees received a fraction of the payments from each design executed, relieving Zucker of the worries of regular wages. Near the end of his American career, Zucker was associated with J. Riely Gordon, a noted architect of public buildings. Gordon was the probable designer of Zucker's Wilkinson County Courthouse in Woodville, Mississippi, which follows Gordon's standard plan. It was his association with Gordon that ended Zucker's American career. In 1904 he fled with his family to Buenos Aires. His goal was to avoid a "$100,000 suit filed by Gordon, who alleged fraud and misrepresentation".^[7] He would have a successful practice in Buenos Aires, dying there in 1913. He would remarry, to Jennie Nace Brooke.