Members of Chicago's architecture community have spoken out in recent days over the abrupt and unexplained departure of AIA Chicago Executive Vice President Zurich Esposito, a highly regarded figure in the city's professional community who is praised for undertaking a variety of successful initiatives to increase the organization's stature.
On August 13th, AIA Chicago published news of Esposito's departure in a brief statement announcing that the Executive Vice President was "no longer with AIA Chicago" without further explanation for the change. The organization also thanked Esposito "for his 14 years of service to the organization and the architecture and design community," offering additionally that "We are focused on the future and plan to begin a national search for a permanent replacement in the coming weeks."
On August 25th, Mark Schmieding, FAIA of Goettsch Partners created a petition expressing "utmost concern with the actions of the AIA Chicago Board of Directors" regarding the departure while also highlighting Esposito's work for Chicago's architecture community. A statement supporting the petition critiques the Board of Directors further, adding, "The board's abrupt removal of Zurich from his position demonstrates questionable and inexperienced behavior. Those actions not only failed Zurich, an invaluable advocate for all of us, but they failed the entire design community as well."
In a recent report from Blair Kamin, architecture critic for The Chicago Tribune, explains that architect John Syvertsen has been tapped as AIA Chicago's Interim Executive Vice President to help the organization with the transition. AIA Chicago tells Kamin that “Out of respect for all parties, additional details will not be shared” regarding the separation.
For now, as the reason for Esposito's departure remains unknown, support continues to grow for the petition, which has collected over 300 signatures as of Friday afternoon.
7 Comments
Do not quite know why he had the job in the first place. There might be something really less than ethical there...
in what sense?
I have no knowledge of this issue or case.
I do, however, totally dig this guy's name, and recommend his next career move be toward professional skateboarding.
as per a dude I know, Esposito is like O'Neil in Ireland or something, so the Zurich was to distinguish, possibly Northern Italian heritage...Now I'm interested.
we demand the gory details!
AIA decided he was doing too good of a job advocating for architects and had to be removed
Something smells bad here... Remember the Local AIA chapter has 4000 or so members with some big firms giving $$$. For $800 plus a year you think they would have invented Houzz or something... Anyway here's a bit of it from Crains:
And ended with Zurich Esposito out of the top job at the American Institute of Architects’ Chicago chapter after 14 years.
In between, tension mounted between Esposito and his nominal boss, April Hughes, president of the chapter’s board. The standoff escalated when lawyers were hired by the board to investigate financial and workplace conditions.
“This board ought to follow the wise action of its treasurer and resign,” commented another signer, architect Roula Alakiotou.
The wheels were set in motion earlier this year with a tweet from architect Katherine Darnstadt, whose firm has turned shipping containers into microstores for startups. What the tweet was about is disputed, but it was sufficiently sharply worded to raise hackles at the AIA and, Darnstadt confirms, was soon deleted.
According to AIA members, tensions escalated between Esposito and Hughes over who should ask Darnstadt—and how firmly—to remove the tweet.
Esposito and Hughes haven’t commented, except for an Aug. 27 email from Hughes that said, “Regarding the departure of our former executive vice president, the decision made by the board of directors was thoroughly and carefully considered.”
Darnstadt declines to be interviewed. In an email, she says, “While the one-day tweet may be frustrating to some, it was ultimately rectified well before the recent events. It was not an issue in the employment termination of the EVP, nor taken into consideration. Any focus on it is a narrative distraction.”
Eventually, two Chicago lawyers arrived at AIA offices to investigate workplace conditions and financial affairs, according to sources that include Kathy Jessen, the financial manager who resigned.
She says attorney Jeanne Kerkstra, a CPA whose website indicates she specializes in estate planning and asset protection, asked for financial records “to make sure everything was clean.” The other lawyer who was on the premises, Alisa Arnoff, is a labor and employment attorney whose webpage says she conducts investigations and advises clients on employee morale, separation issues and “workplace problems.“
Neither attorney replied to calls and emails seeking comment. The probes infuriated Jessen, prompting her resignation last month. She and others say the board’s treasurer, architect Patricia Saldana Natke, also resigned. Natke hasn’t returned calls.
“Because of what they did to Zurich, I couldn’t work with those people,” Jessen says. “They were very unprofessional in their approach. The board had no (prior) issues" with him.
Another prominent actor said to be involved was Jessica Figenholtz, the chapter’s president-elect. Reached at her Perkins & Will office, she said, “I apologize. I can’t comment at the moment.”
The showdown between Hughes and Esposito came after the lawyers finished their work and he was asked to sign a document relating to alleged workplace conditions, according to sources including Jessen.
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