Kevin Roche


Eamonn Kevin Roche was an Irish-born American Pritzker Prize-winning architect. He has been responsible for the design/master planning for over 200 built projects in both the U.S. and abroad. These projects include eight museums, 38 corporate headquarters, seven research facilities, performing arts centers, theaters, and campus buildings for six universities. In 1967 he created the master plan for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and henceforth designed all of the new wings and installation of many collections including the recently reopened American and Islamic wings.
Born in Dublin and a graduate from University College, Roche went to the United States to study with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In the U.S., he became the principal designer for Eero Saarinen, and opened his own architectural firm in 1967.
Among other awards, Roche received the Pritzker in 1982, the Gold Medal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1990, and the AIA Gold Medal in 1993.

Biography

Born in Dublin, but raised in Mitchelstown, County Cork, Roche attended Rockwell College and graduated from University College Dublin in 1945. He then worked with Michael Scott from 1945-46. From summer to fall of 1946 he worked with Maxwell Fry in London. In 1947 he applied for graduate studies at Harvard, Yale, and the Illinois Institute of Technology and was accepted at all three institutions, and left Ireland in 1948 to study under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
in the 1950s
In 1949, he worked at the planning office for the United Nations Headquarters building in New York City. In 1950, he joined the firm of Eero Saarinen and Associates. His future partner, John Dinkeloo, joined the firm in 1951 and this was also where Roche met his wife Jane. In 1954, he became the Principal Design Associate to Saarinen and assisted him on all projects from that time until Saarinen's death in September 1961.
In 1966, Roche and Dinkeloo formed Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates and completed Saarinen's projects. They completed 12 major unfinished Saarinen builds, including some of Saarinen's best-known work: the Gateway Arch, the expressionistic TWA Flight Center at JFK International Airport in New York City, Dulles International Airport outside Washington, DC, the strictly modern John Deere Headquarters in Moline, Illinois, and the CBS Headquarters building in New York City.
Following this, Roche and Dinkeloo's first major commission was the Oakland Museum of California, a complex for the art, natural history, and cultural history of California with a design featuring interrelated terraces and roof gardens. The city was planning a monumental building to house natural history, technology and art, and Roche provided a unique concept: a building that is a series of low-level concrete structures covering a four block area, on three levels, the terrace of each level forming the roof of the one below, i.e. a museum with a park on its roof. This kind of innovative solution went on to become Roche's trademark.
This project was followed by the equally highly acclaimed Ford Foundation building in New York City, considered the first large-scale architectural building in the US to devote a substantial portion of its space to horticultural pursuits. Its famous atrium was designed with the notion of having urban green-space accessible to all and is an early example of the application of environmental psychology in architecture. The building was recognized in 1968 by Architectural Record as "a new kind of urban space".
The acclaim that greeted the Oakland Museum and Ford Foundation earned Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates a ranking at the top of their profession. Shortly afterward they began a 40-year association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, for whom they did extensive remodeling and built many extensions to house new galleries including the one containing the Egyptian Temple of Dendur. Other high-profile commissions for the firm came from clients as varied as Wesleyan University, the United Nations, Cummins Engines, Union Carbide, The United States Post Office and the Knights of Columbus.
In 1982, Kevin Roche became one of the first recipients of the Pritzker Prize, generally regarded as architecture's equivalent to the Nobel prize. Following this accolade Roche's practice went global, receiving commissions for buildings in Paris, Madrid, Singapore and Tokyo. He completed his first and only Irish project The Convention Centre Dublin in 2010.
Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates has designed numerous corporate headquarters, office buildings, banks, museums, art centers, and even part of the Bronx Zoo. Roche served as a trustee of the American Academy in Rome, president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a member of the National Academy of Design, and a member of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

Death

Roche died on March 1, 2019 at his home in Guilford, Connecticut, aged 96.

Prizes and awards

The work of Kevin Roche has been the subject of special exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Architectural Association of Ireland in Dublin, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. A 2012 exhibition Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment opened at the Yale School of Architecture in New Haven, Connecticut and has been viewed at The Museum of the City of New York and at the Building Museum in Washington, and the University of Toronto.
In addition to the Pritzker Prize, Roche was the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal Award for Architecture, and the French Academie d'Architecture Grand Gold Medal.

Film

A feature documentary called Kevin Roche: The Quiet Architect was released in 2017. It is directed by Irish filmmaker Mark Noonan.

Buildings

Mr. Roche has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the following:
Honorary Degrees: