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Columbia GSAPP establishes new James Stewart Polshek Scholarship in honor of its former Dean

2023-02-01T13:31:00-05:00

Former Columbia GSAPP dean James Stewart Polshek has been posthumously honored with a new endowed scholarship in recognition of the commitment to design excellence and social causes he embodied while helming the school for fifteen years.

The Ennead founder passed away in September and was subsequently remembered with a foundational gift of $125,000 from the firm that was meant to keep alive his enduring legacy as both an architect and educator. The new $350,000 total fund will thus be given in perpetuity to an M.Arch student in their final year of study whose work demonstrates the intellectual rigor and social concern Polshek strove for beginning with his appointment in 1972.

During his tenure in Morningside, Polshek was instrumental in adding degree programs in planning and preservation to the then-named School of Architecture. He also helped to establish the...

James Stewart Polshek, academic and designer of important public architecture, has passed away aged 92

2022-09-12T19:14:00-04:00

A rare modest figure in a crowded era of star architects and designers has passed away as the New York Times is reporting the death of James Stewart Polshek on Friday at his home in Manhattan.

Polshek was known as the designer of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Newtown Creek sewage plant in Brooklyn, and Newseum in Washington, D.C., among many others. His colleagues recalled him as a progressive champion who balanced the ideological pull of high modernism with a sensitivity to different forms, themes, building types, and architectural styles. In a statement published by the Architectural Record, Polshek’s former firm partner Richard Olcott said he was "ahead of his time."

William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park. Photo credit: © Timothy Hursley.

Born in Akron, Ohio in 1930, Polshek studied architecture at nearby Case Western Reserve University and later Yale before pursuing a Fulbright Scholarship in Copenhagen and beginnin...

In search of better affordable housing: the origin story of the Bronx's Twin Parks development

2017-12-27T14:02:00-05:00

In the 1970s, a state agency tapped some of the best young architects in the country for an ambitious affordable housing effort that—despite its flaws—could not be matched today. Twin Parks, an affordable housing project in the Bronx, does not comport with expectations. [...] Overall, it provides palpably better affordable housing than what’s typically offered in the U.S., and maintains an engaged community.

CityLab writer Anthony Paletta looks back at the origins of the 1970s Twin Parks affordable housing development in the Bronx and its (now) famous architects who were then just gaining traction in their young careers, most notably Richard Meier, James Polshek (and this year's winner of the AIA Gold Medal), and Lo-Yi Chan.