In an exclusive thirty minute-long discussion with Kevin Roche, described in this interview as "arguably the greatest living architect you've never heard of," Monocle's Steve Bloomfield hears about his early years in practice through to the evolution of his design philosophy over a career which has spanned five decades.
Born in Ireland in 1922, Roche's early years as an architect-in-training were formative: he first moved to the USA in 1948 to study under Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology but left after just one semester, eventually swapping Mies's strict functionalist style for a more fluid, expressive variant of Modernism when he joined Eero Saarinen's New York City practice. As Principal Design Associate at Eero Saarinen and Associates at the time of Saarinen's death, he was instrumental in the completion of many well known projects such as the TWA Terminal at JFK Airport and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
Listen to the full interview, recorded earlier this year in New Haven, Connecticut, here:
AD Classics: Knights of Columbus Building / Kevin Roche & John Dinkeloo
From the architect. The firm Roche-Dinkeloo and Associates is known for producing some of the most significant and influential civic and corporate architecture of contemporary times. The two architects were very successful in recognizing new social conditions within their postindustrial society, paying specific attention to the individual and their changing relationship with public space.
