Gunnar Birkerts (1925- ) has an international practice and a reputation for dramatic expressionist buildings. His only work in the Upper Peninsula, the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, is typically sculptural and striking.

Biography

Gunnar Birkerts <www.gunnarbirkerts.com>

Birkerts was born in Riga, Latvia, on January 17, 1925. He attended Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart, Germany, where he obtained a degree in architecture and engineering in 1949,¹ and in 1950-1951 Birkerts worked at Perkins and Will, an architectural firm in Chicago. From 1951-1954, he worked for Eero Saarinen and Associates in Bloomfield Hills, MI, until he was taken on as lead designer by Minoru Yamasaki and Associates in Birmingham, MI, from 1955-1959.

In 1959 Birkerts started his own firm along with Franc Straub in Birmingham, MI. Birkerts and Straub became Gunnar Birkerts and Associates in 1962.² Around the same time as starting his own firm, Birkerts became a professor of architecture at the University of Michigan. He held this position from 1959 until 1990.

Birkerts’ past projects include Museum of Glass in Corning, New York; the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minnesota; the University of Michigan Law School Addition in Ann Arbor, MI; the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in Kansas City, Missouri; the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela; the University of Iowa College of Law in Iowa City; the Air Touchcellular Tower in Ann Arbor, MI; and the Church of the Servant in Kentwood, MI. His current projects include a chapel for the Adrian Dominican Sisters in Adrian, MI; the Museum of Occupation in Riga, Latvia; and an addition to Lincoln Elementary School in Columbus, Indiana.³

Birkerts’ awards include the Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects, Detroit Chapter (1975); Architect in Residence, American Academy in Rome (1976); Gold Medal, Michigan Society of Architects (1980); The Great Medal, Latvian Academy of Sciences (2000); and many others. Birkerts has also received 58 awards for individual projects.⁴