Gunnar Birkerts Architect Latvia, Massachusetts

Gunnar Birkerts Architecture, Massachusetts Design Studio, Building Projects, Office

Gunnar Birkerts Architect : Architecture

Contemporary Architectural Practice, USA + Latvia Design Studio Information

post updated Apr 29, 2021

Gunnar Birkerts – Key Projects

Museum of Occupation Riga, Latvia
Date built: –
Gunnar Birkerts Building in Riga Latvia
image: M Karklins received from RIAS May 2003 re Gunnar Birkerts lecture

Gunnar Birkerts Buildings

Architectural Designs by Gunnar Birkerts, alphabetical:

Adrian Domenican Sisters – Chapel, Adrian, Michigan, USA
Date built: –

Air Touch Cellular Tower, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Date built: –

Cross of Christ Church, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, USA
Date built: –
Design with Di Clemente Siegel Design Inc.

Giesel Library – Underground Extension, University of California, San Diego, USA
Date built: –
Design with Carrier Johnson, Architects

Lincoln Elementary School – Extension, Columbus, Indiana, USA

Marriott Library – Underground Extension, University of Utah, Michigan, USA

Design with Carrier Johnson

Museum of Occupation, Riga, Latvia

Ohio State University – College of Law Extension / Refurbishment, Ohio, USA

Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, Michigan Technical University, Houghton, Michigan, USA

Design with Di Clemente Siegel Design Inc.

More architecture projects by architect Gunnar Birkerts online soon

Location: Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA

Wellesley Architects Practice Information
Latvian/Canadian architect – design studio based in Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA

Review of Lecture by Gunnar Birkerts

Next up was Gunnar Birkerts, who many of us had heard of but couldn’t recall any one building. Gunnar made sure this didn’t last. He started with a long-winded explanation of ‘organic systems’, his modernist dogmatic approach, but lost me in a conflated comparison between library statistics.

It soon became clear, but after an amusing reminder that ‘we are here’ in Scotland (with ref. to his map) and the following ‘You Scots have it made because you have images that are so known that you don’t have to look for them’. He proceeded to gesticulate a kilt, an unusual bagpipe style and golf! More bizarrely came an unusual termite mound of a section for his Riga Library.

Powww!! it becomes an astonishing sculptural dry ski slope plopped into a leafy city plot. The influence of working for Eero Saarinen is apparent. In a postnote, the Latvian ambassador said ‘we’re still twenty years ahead of the British Library in London!’ I somehow doubt it’s exterior is ahead of the unusual elevations of this building, to be awaited by Latvians!
RIAS Convention 05.05.03

Michigan Architecture

Gunnar was raised in Latvia but fled ahead of the advancing Russian army toward the end of the Second World War. He graduated from the Technische Hochschule, Stuttgart, Germany, in 1949. He came to the United States and worked initially for Perkins and Will, then for Eero Saarinen, and finally for Minoru Yamasaki before opening his own office in the Detroit suburbs.

He initially practiced in the partnership Birkerts and Straub; after that partnership broke up the firm became Gunnar Birkerts and Associates. The architecture firm received Honor Awards for its projects from the (national) American Institute of Architects in 1962, 1970, 1973, as well as numerous awards from the Michigan Society of Architects and the local chapter.

The architect was selected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1970, and a Fellow of the Latvian Architect Association in 1971. He is the recipient of numerous individual awards including a 1971 fellowship from the Graham Foundation, the Gold Medal of the Michigan Society of Architects in 1980, the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1981, and the 1993 Michigan Artist of the Year award.
source: Gunnar Birkerts architect

Website: n/a

Latvian Building Designs

Riga Architecture Designs : links

Latvia Architecture Designs

Hanzas Spire Tower in Riga
Architects: AI Studio and DoStudio
Hanzas Spire Tower Riga Latvian Architecture News
image : Photoreal3D
Hanzas Spire Tower in Riga

Abas Malas, Riga
Design: Didzis Jaunzems Architecture
Both Sides in Arena Riga Latvian Architecture News
photography : Uldis Lapiņš
Both Sides in Arena Riga

Latvian Architecture

Architecture Studios

Buildings / photos for the Gunnar Birkerts page welcome