James Polshek

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James Polshek (born 1930, Akron, Ohio) is an American architect currently living in New York.

Polshek served 15 years as the dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. He received his undergraduate degree from Case Western Reserve University, and his Master of Architecture degree from Yale School of Architecture. He was also a Fulbright/Hayes fellow in Denmark.

Polshek's firm, Polshek Partnership Architects, was founded in 1963 and is best known for its renovations and expansions of public buildings. Polshek himself is unusual among top-tier architects for taking the position that architecture is more craft than fine art, and that architects have some measure of social responsibility.

[edit] Design projects completed

1978 to 2003: Carnegie Hall, New York. Involved since 1978 in four phases of the Hall's renovation and expansion including the creation of a Master Plan in 1980; the actual renovation of the main hall, the Stern Auditorium, and the creation of the Weill Recital Hall and Kaplan Rehearsal Space, all in 1987; the creation of the Rose Music Museum, Rohatyn Room and Shorin Club Room, all in 1993; and, most recently, the creation of Zankel Hall in 2003.
1986 to 1993: Brooklyn Museum. Along with architect, Arata Isozaki, his firm was selected to design the first Master Plan in 1986 for the renovation and expansion of the Museum, including the glassy redesign of the museum's historic façade and entrance, the creation of the Cantor Auditorium (1991), and the Shapiro Wing (1993).
1993: Ed Sullivan Theater in New York renovated and a television studio created for CBS's Late Show with David Letterman.
1998: The Santa Fe Opera's Crosby Theater in New Mexico.
2000: Rose Center for Earth and Space (the planetarium cube) expansion of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which opened February 19
2001: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution. Interior re-design.
2001: Scandinavia House - The Nordic Center in America, located on 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY. Design of the 27,000 sq. ft. building.
2004: William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Arkansas.
2006: Paresky Center at Williams College, Massachusetts.

[edit] Timeline

1947 - started at Case Western Reserve University's Adelbert College in premed. thought of becoming a psychiatrist.
struggled with school, took a range of different kinds of courses
somewhere in his first 3 years took a course in the history of modern architecture, it was easy and interesting for him
on a break in Akron, he observed a new Frank Lloyd Wright house
decided to switch to architecture. family was not very supportive of this.
Case Western Reserve University had an architecture program, but it was classically oriented, and that did not interest him
Went to Yale (more modern-oriented). “I think going to school in the shadow of the Cleveland Museum of Art and Severance Hall, and hanging out around [Western Reserve’s] Haydn Hall and on the great, generous veranda of Guilford House was important. It was that kind of fusion of country and city, nature and architecture that had an effect on me, and still does to this day.”
Married Ellyn Margolis in 1952.
Graduated from Yale in 1955 with a master's in architecture
After yale, worked for I.M. Pei
Began his firm in 1963
1972, FAIA
1972-87, dean of the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University
1973, Western Reserve University granted him his bachelor of science degree, in light of his deanship at Columbia, and forgiving the 8 credits that he was short.
1986, medal of honor of the AIA
Raised two children with wife Ellyn: Peter and Jenny.
1992, firm received the Architecture Firm Award from AIA