Krueck and Sexton Architects

Krueck and Sexton Architects
Practice information
Key architects	Ron Krueck Mark Sexton Tom Jacobs
Founded	1979
Location	Chicago, Illinois, United States
Significant works and honors
Projects	Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies Crown Fountain Steel and Glass House Herman Miller National Design Center, Chicago

Krueck and Sexton Architects is an architecture practice in Chicago, Illinois, United States, founded by Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton in 1979. Tom Jacobs was named the third principal in 2011.

Overview

Krueck+Sexton Architects has completed a variety of projects that have received US national and regional awards. Their design process is marked by close client collaboration. They are known for their interdisciplinary approach and research-based studio culture.^[1] Currently, the firm’s design for a New Federal Office Building with a net-zero energy target by 2030 is under construction and is scheduled to open in 2014.^[2]

The firm’s architectural point of view states that space, daylight, scale, proportion, materiality, and detail matter most.^[3]

Blair Kamin stated in an article he wrote about the practice when named "Chicagoans of the Year" by the Chicago Tribune that “Unlike today’s solo-oriented “starchitects,” Krueck and Sexton form a true partnership, relying heavily on their complimentary talents. Krueck conceptualizes. Sexton questions. Krueck refines.”^[4]

Among the firms designs are Chicago's Spertus Institute and Crown Fountain.^[5] Spertus Institute is known for its striking all glass facade that provides views towards Grant Park and Lake Michigan, where 726 panes of glass in over 500 different shapes and sizes were used while simultaneously staying within a tight budget.^[6] Krueck and Sexton worked in close collaboration with artist Jaume Plensa to help realize his design for Crown Fountain in Chicago's Millennium Park.

The firm has also completed restoration work on Mies van der Rohe's 860-880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments where the facades were recoated and cleaned, the plaza was restored with a new concealed drainage system, and new sandblasted glass was used in the lobby, which more accurately represents the original design.^[7]

GSA Design Excellence Office Building.

Crown Hall south.

Eisenhower Competition Entry.

Honors and awards

Krueck and Sexton Architects has been the recipient of many national and regional awards for their designs, most notably for the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, the Steel and Glass House, Crown Fountain, Herman Miller National Showroom in Chicago, and Phillips Plastics Custom Molding Facility. The firm’s work has been featured and exhibited nationally and internationally by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, A+U, Global Architecture, The Whitney Museum, The Museum of Modern Art and many others. Both Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton are members of American Institute of Architects College of Fellows.^[8]

• AIA Chicago Firm of the Year, 2004
• American Institute of Architects National Honor Awards
• AIA Chicago Chapter Honor Awards^[9]
• Good Design is Good Business Award, Business Week/Architectural Record
• Top Ten Green Project, US Department of Energy
• Chicagoans of the Year, Chicago Tribune, 2005, Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton^[4]
• American Institute of Architects National Young Architect Award, 2012, Tom Jacobs^[10]
• ‘40 Under 40’ Top Architects in the USA, Interiors Magazine, 1986
• Interior Design Hall of Fame
• Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence^[11]

Selected projects

Cultural/public

• Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, Chicago, IL completed 2007
  • Spertus Institute is known for its all-glass façade that provides views towards Grant Park and Lake Michigan, where 726 panes of glass in over 500 different shapes and sizes were used while simultaneously staying within a tight budget. The first modern addition to a landmarked historic street wall, Cheryl Kent wrote of the building, “(its) crystalline façade fits in superbly, if surprisingly, on a street full of stone and brick landmarks, mostly from the turn of the 19th century. The new Spertus is both resolutely contemporary and respectful of its distinguished neighbors.” In 2008, the year after it was completed, Spertus Institute won an AIA Chicago Building Award and AIA Divine Detail Award, Building of the Year by Interior Design magazine, and became the first museum in Chicago to become LEED certified.^[12][13]
• Crown Fountain, Chicago, IL 2004^[12][14][15]
• Chicago Children's Museum, Chicago, IL un-built^[16]

Commercial

• GSA Design Excellence, Office Building, Miramar, FL 2014^[17]
• Shure Incorporated, Technology Center, Niles, IL 2004
  • A 75,000 sf state-of-the-art addition built to accommodate the design and testing of Shure Inc.’s high performance audio products.^[18]
• Shure Incorporated, S.N. Theater, Niles, IL 2009^[18]
• 1100 First Street, Washington D.C. completed 2009
  • A 350,000 sf office building which received LEED-CS Gold.^[19]

Residential

• Steel + Glass House, Chicago, IL 1981
  • Kenneth Frampton is quoted as saying “The Steel + Glass House represents the Neo-Miesianism of the latter-day Chicago School at its most sophisticated.” Designed and built in a time when post-modernism was the prevailing architectural style, the Steel and Glass House won a National AIA Honor Award in 1986 and an AIA Chicago Distinguished Building Award.^[20]
• Transparent House II, Gulf Coast completed 2005^[12][21]
• Stainless Steel Apartment, Chicago, IL 1992
  • A duplex apartment in Mies van der Rohe’s landmark 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments.^[22][23]
• Cloud II Apartment, Milwaukee, WI completed 2009^[24]

Preservation

• 860–880 Lake Shore Drive Apartments Restoration, Chicago, IL completed 2009^[25][26]

References

External links

• Krueck + Sexton Architects website
• The Art Institute of Chicago, Oral History of Ronald A. Krueck