Ficken came to the United States in 1869 and worked variously for the firms of Renwick & Sands, Potter & Robertson, and McKim, Mead & Bigelow. In 1878, he formed a partnership with Charles H. Smith as Ficken & Smith, though their association was brief. By the following year, he was instead in partnership with Charles D. Gambrill. In October 1878, Gambrill had dissolved his former partnership with Henry Hobson Richardson, with whom he had been associated with since 1867. Gambrill & Ficken existed only very briefly, as Gambrill died in 1880 in what was presumed to be a suicide.A. J. Bloor, "Report of the New York Chapter" in Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Convention of the American Institute of Architects (New York: American Institute of Architects, 1881): 17-19.
