Kevin Roche

Gateway Arch in St. Louis ( Missouri ): Saarinen , completed by Roche and Dinkeloo (1961–1966)

TWA terminal of JFK International Airport : Saarinen , completed by Roche and Dinkeloo (1956–1962)

Dulles Airport : Saarinen , completed by Roche and Dinkeloo (1958–1962)

Roche investment: Mark Ellingson Hall at Rochester Institute of Technology (1968)

Fine Arts Center (left, rear view) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (1968–1974)

Power Center for the Performing Arts, University of Michigan (1969–1981)

National Aquarium in Baltimore (1981)

Leo Burnett Building, Chicago (1989)

Kevin Roche [ ɹəʊtʃ ] (born June 14, 1922 in Dublin ; † March 1, 2019 ) was an Irish- born American architect whose life achievement was honored in 1982 with the Pritzker Prize for Architecture , one of the world's most prestigious architecture prizes .

Life

Kevin Roche was born in Dublin in 1922 and grew up in Mitchelstown (about 40 km northeast of Cork ). After attending Rockwell College, he began studying architecture at University College Dublin , graduating in 1945 with a Bachelor of Architecture . He worked with the architect Michael Scott (1905–1989), who at the time gathered a number of young, talented architects, most of whom had just left university, including Wilfried Cantwell (* 1920) , Kevin Fox (* 1922), Patrick Hamilton (* 1921), Patrick Scott (1921–2014) and Robin Walker (1924–1991).

During his time with Michael Scott, Roche worked on the Busáras (Áras-Mhic-Dhiarmada) project. The bus station, completed in 1953, was one of the first modern structures to be built in central Dublin after the Second World War . At the same time, Busáras was the prototype for a number of other bus stations to be built across Ireland in the future. Roche left Ireland before the completion of this project.

Roche then worked with the British architect Maxwell Fry (1899–1987) and his wife Jane Drew (1911–1996). In 1933 Fry founded the so-called MARS (Modern Architectural Research Group) together with Wells Coates (1895–1958) and Morton Shand (1888–1960) - a “think tank” for modern, even visionary architecture. But Roche did not last long here either.

In 1948 he emigrated to the United States and studied a semester in a master’s course at the Illinois Institute of Technology with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe . After only short-term employment at the United Nations Planning Office, he then worked from 1951 to 1961 for Eero Saarinen (Eero Saarinen & Associates) in Bloomfield Hills in the US state of Michigan . Roche soon rose to become the most important designer at Eero Saarinen & Associates .

When Saarinen died unexpectedly in 1961, Kevin Roche, together with civil engineer John Dinkeloo (1918–1981), completed twelve unfinished Saarinen projects, including the Gateway Arch (1961–1966) in St. Louis ( Missouri ) TWA terminal (1956–1962) at JFK International Airport in New York , Dulles International Airport (1958–1962) in Washington, DC and the high-rise building of CBS headquarters (1960–1964) in New York.

In 1966, Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo changed the name of the architectural practice from Eero Saarinen & Associates to Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates . The company had meanwhile relocated from Michigan to Hamden, Connecticut . One of her very first projects was the Oakland Museum of California (1961–1968) in Oakland, California . Numerous other projects followed, including the headquarters of the Ford Foundation (1963–1968) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1967–1985) in New York, as well as the Knights of Columbus Building in New Haven (Connecticut) .

honors and awards

• 1970 election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 1973 elected member ( NA ) of the National Academy of Design
• 1974 Architectural Firm Award from the American Institute of Architects
• 1976 Total Design Award from the American Society of Designers
• 1977 Grand Gold Medal of the Académie royale d'architecture , France
• 1982 Pritzker Prize , considered the highest honor awarded in the field
• 1993 Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects
• 1994 elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1995 Twenty-five Year Award from the American Institute of Architects for designing the headquarters of the Ford Foundation in New York
• Honorary Doctorates from the National University of Ireland and Wesleyan University

Significant works

In addition to the works mentioned above, the following were created (partly in collaboration with Dinkeloo)

• John Deere -Zentrale (1961-1964), Moline ( Illinois )
• Oakland Museum of California (1961–1968) in Oakland (California)
• Richard C. Lee High School (1962-1967), New Haven, Connecticut; has housed the Yale School of Nursing and Yale-New Haven Hospital offices since 1995
• Headquarters of the Ford Foundation (1963–1968), New York
• New Haven Veterans Memorial Coliseum (1965–1972; demolished January 20, 2007), New Haven, Connecticut
• Metropolitan Museum of Art (1967–1985), New York
• Several buildings on the site of the Rochester Institute of Technology (1968), Rochester (New York): Mark Ellingson Hall, Nathaniel Rochester Hall, Sol Heumann Hall, George Eastman Building and Kate Gleason Hall
• Knights of Columbus Building (1969), New Haven (Connecticut)
• Post Office (1969), Columbus, Indiana
• Power Center for the Performing Arts (1969–1981) University of Michigan , Ann Arbor (Michigan)
• United Nations Plaza (1969–1976), New York
• Fine Arts Center (1968–1974), University of Massachusetts Amherst , Amherst (Massachusetts)
• Union Carbide Corporate Center (headquarters of Union Carbide Corporation ) (1976–1982), Danbury (Connecticut)
• Central Park Zoo (1980-1988), New York
• National Aquarium in Baltimore (1981), Baltimore ( Maryland )
• Morgan Bank Headquarters (1983), New York
• Bouygues headquarters (1983), Paris
• Leo Burnett Building (1989), Chicago
• Bank of America Plaza (1991/1992) Atlanta ( Georgia )
• Museum of Jewish Heritage (1997-2003), New York
• Quincy Market , Boston ( Massachusetts )

Web links

Commons : Category: Kevin Roche  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

•  Internet presence of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates
•  Biography and description of the work
•  Kevin Roche on pritzkerprize.com
•  Entry by Kevin Roche on greatbuildings.com
•  Kevin Roche. In: arch INFORM .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ [1]
2. ↑ Academy Members. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed January 20, 2019 . 
3. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Living Academicians "R" / Roche, Kevin, NA 1973 ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on July 13, 2015)