AIA 2018 Awards

James S. Polshek

In choosing James Stewart Polshek for its annual Gold Medal, the Board of the American Institute of Architects has chosen a no-bunk designer of buildings. The 87-year-old New York architect hasn’t propounded overriding theories or endlessly replicated signature forms. While he earned his M.Arch. degree at Yale and is based in the Big Apple, Polshek hails from Akron, Ohio, and has retained a characteristic Midwestern pragmatism – simply designing the best buildings for their purposes and sites.

Polshek and the partners he assembled reach beyond narrow functionalism, however, to ensure that their buildings complement the structures and spaces around them. And, in a practice dominated by institutional buildings, they ensure that each structure presents a memorable and appropriate image — supporting what could (perhaps too crassly) be called the institution’s “brand.”

The Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, for instance, has a distinctive form that is highly assertive yet integral to the riverfront park developed for it. The Earth and Space Center wing that his firm added to New York’s Museum of Natural History gracefully introduces a kind of planetary imagery to the institution’s odd mix of stolid structures. The Newseum in Washington looks strong and highly distinctive while maintaining the characteristic DC street wall.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park, Little Rock, AR. Photo © Timothy Hursley

While new construction is the most conspicuous product of Polshek’s office, it has carried out notable renovations to historic structures. At New York’s beloved Carnegie Hall, his firm made hidden but crucial improvements to the main hall’s already admired acoustics, created an all new recital hall, and added a welcome canopy at the main entrance that seems as if it must always have been there. At the city’s Cooper Hewitt design museum, housed in a historic mansion, additional galleries and a new cafe are among improvements accomplished without damaging any of its landmark interiors.

Rose Center for Earth and Space at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. Photo: © Jeff Goldberg/Esto

Polshek established his own firm, James Stewart Polshek Architect, in 1963. Over the decades the firm name evolved through several iterations to become The Polshek Partnership at the time he retired from active practice in 2005. In 2010 the office, headed by Polshek’s long-time partners, adopted the collective name Ennead Architects.

The Newseum / Freedom Forum Foundation World Headquarters, Washington, DC. Photo: © Jeff Goldberg/Esto

While building a flourishing practice, Polshek also found time and energy to be an influential teacher, encouraging generations of students to explore architecture with his kind of sensitive pragmatism. He was Dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation from1972 to 1986.

The Newtown Creek water treatment plant, New York City, NY. Photo: © Jeff Goldberg/Esto

In recent years, the AIA has tried to counter the profession’s history of white male domination with Gold Medals to architects passed over in their lifetimes. Last year’s posthumous honoree, the African-American Paul Revere Williams (1894-1980),was for decades the go-to designer for the homes and enterprises of the Hollywood elite. The 2014 medalist Julia Morgan (1872-1957) was another prolific Californian whose domestic and institutional works include the landmark Hearst Castle. In 2016, the Institute conferred the Gold for the first time on a creative pair, Robert Venturi and his wife/partner Denise Scott Brown.

This year, AIA has chosen again from the vastly larger contingent of ethnic-majority men who have been privileged to lead the profession for centuries. And Polshek sets an exalted standard for architects of any gender or color to strive for.

The gender diverse staff of Snow Kreilich Architects. Photo: Courtesy of AIA.

Laudable Procedures and Product

Simultaneously with the Gold Medal, the AIA announced the recipient of its 2018 Firm Award: Snow Kreilich Architects of Minneapolis. This honor is bestowed annually on one firm that has produced distinguished work for at least ten years. It recognizes the winner’s quality of design, of course, but inevitably stresses as well its structure and operation. While the quality of Snow Kreilich’s design is outstanding, its recognition also addresses architecture’s well-intentioned but snail-paced movement toward diversity in its ranks.

CHS Baseball Park, St Paul, MN. Photo: © Paul Crosby.

The firm was founded in 1995 by Julie Snow, who was joined later by partner Matt Kreilich. Diverging from the demographics typical of their profession, the firm maintains a staff of which 50 percent are women or members of minorities. In a different area it has defied centuries-old conventions by banning all-night design “charrettes”. Committed to a healthy life/work balance, Snow Kreilich has proven that outstanding architecture can be produced during regular business hours.

A weekend retreat at Lake Superior, Shroeder, MN. Photo: © Corey Gaffer.

With an output that varies in scale from single-family houses and transit stops to a metropolitan ballpark, the office has made especially notable contributions to the nation’s border facilities at ports of entry in Warroad, Minnesota, and Van Buren, Maine. (These commissions, it should be noted, exemplify the U.S. General Services Administration’s laudable Design Excellence Program, under which design firms have been chosen by panels of independent experts.)

U.S.A. Land Port of Entry at Van Buren, Maine. Photo: © Paul Crosby.

In a letter supporting Snow Kreilich’s award nomination, architect Marlon Blackwell of Fayetteville, Arkansas — himself a strong candidate for high AIA recognition — praised the firm for “avoiding the nostalgic and technological excesses of our discipline.” Good goal!

Residence on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, Deephaven, MN. © Paul Crosby.