Raymund, Ryan
Kevin Roche (1922 – 2019) - 27 June 2019 - London EMAP Publishing Limited 2019
Modesty is not an attribute usually associated with fame and influence, especially for architects of the ilk under scrutiny in Reputations; yet modesty, or lack of pretension, was inherent in Kevin Roche’s personality. ‘It’s the buildings’, one can imagine the soft-spoken, Irish-born architect counsel, ‘it is the built work that matters.’ And Roche’s work, perhaps paradoxically for such an unassuming individual, frequently exhibited an unmistakable bravura.
Awarded the Pritzker in 1982, Roche represents – between Johnson, the first laureate in 1979, Pei in 1983, and Bunshaft in 1988 – the great flourishing of American corporate architecture in the decades after the Second World War. That association, represented by such landmark headquarters as Union Carbide in forested Connecticut, or Bouygues, a palatial spacecraft in the orbit of Versailles, came somewhat naturally to Roche as the former assistant of Eero Saarinen. After Saarinen’s sudden death in 1961 aged only 51, Roche, together with John Dinkeloo, realised several of his most memorable structures, the TWA Flight Center at JFK and Dulles International Airport.
ARCHITECTURE GENERAL (AR-GEN)
Kevin Roche (1922 – 2019) - 27 June 2019 - London EMAP Publishing Limited 2019
Modesty is not an attribute usually associated with fame and influence, especially for architects of the ilk under scrutiny in Reputations; yet modesty, or lack of pretension, was inherent in Kevin Roche’s personality. ‘It’s the buildings’, one can imagine the soft-spoken, Irish-born architect counsel, ‘it is the built work that matters.’ And Roche’s work, perhaps paradoxically for such an unassuming individual, frequently exhibited an unmistakable bravura.
Awarded the Pritzker in 1982, Roche represents – between Johnson, the first laureate in 1979, Pei in 1983, and Bunshaft in 1988 – the great flourishing of American corporate architecture in the decades after the Second World War. That association, represented by such landmark headquarters as Union Carbide in forested Connecticut, or Bouygues, a palatial spacecraft in the orbit of Versailles, came somewhat naturally to Roche as the former assistant of Eero Saarinen. After Saarinen’s sudden death in 1961 aged only 51, Roche, together with John Dinkeloo, realised several of his most memorable structures, the TWA Flight Center at JFK and Dulles International Airport.
ARCHITECTURE GENERAL (AR-GEN)