KAFKA, Hugo (1843-1915), architect of New York City who collaborated with the Montreal architects Fowler & Bowe to rebuild and restore Nordheimer's Hall, St. James Street, MONTREAL, QUE. in 1882 after a fire had destroyed the interior of this famous 19th C. music venue. Originally designed in 1859 by William Kaufmann, the Hall was converted to a theatre space in 1879 by John W. & E.C. Hopkins in 1879, but required a complete reconstruction in 1882, supervised by the New York City architect Hugo Kafka.
Best known for his lavish residential and early apartment projects in Manhattan, Kafka was born in the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1843 and studied in Zurich, Switzerland under the famous architect Gottfried Semper. He emigrated to the United States in 1874 and settled in Philadelphia, where he found work as an assistant to Hermann Swartzmann, Chief Architect at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in that city. Kafka joined the American Institute of Architects in 1876, and commenced practise under his own name in 1881, and the following year he joined in a brief partnership with Alfred B. Mullett, the former U.S. Supervising Architect in Washington. From 1884 to 1892 he practised alone in New York, then served in another partnership with Charles T. Mott from 1893 to 1896. Kafka continued to work until 1911, either under his own name, or in a new partnership of Kafka & Lindenmeyer. He later died in New Rochelle, N.Y. on 28 April 1915 (death notice New York Times, 30 April 1915, 13; obituary, A.I.A. Journal [Washington], iii, 1915, 305; biography H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of Architects in America, 1956, 329; biog. Dennis S. Francis, Architects in Practice in New York City 1840-1900, pub. 1979, 45).