Roche, Kevin 1922 - 2019

Eamon Kevin Roche [commonly known as Kevin Roche] was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 14 June 1922 and studied architecture at University College Dublin - National University of Ireland (1940-45) from where he graduated with a B.Arch. in 1945. He then worked as a designer with Michael Scott & Partners in Dublin (1945-46, 1947-48), and as an architect with Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in London (1946), before moving to the USA in 1948 to continue his architectural studies at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Illinois under Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1948-49). He then worked briefly in the United Nations Planning Office in New York (1949), before joining Eero Saarinen & Associates in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan [which later relocated to Hamden, Connecticut] where he was associate and subsequently principal associate (1950-66).  

Following Saarinen's death in 1961, Roche, and civil engineer John Dinkeloo (1918-1981) completed his ten unfinished projects including the TWA Flight Center [now Terminal 5] at JFK International Airport in New York (1962), Dullus International Airport, near Washington, DC (1962), the Vivian Beaumont Reperatory Theater for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in Manhattan, New York (1965), and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri (1965).  

In 1966 Roche and Dinkeloo renamed Eero Saarinen & Associates Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates (KRJD).  

Significant architectural projects by Roche and KRJD have included the Ford Foundation Building in New York (1967); the headquarters of the College Life Insurance Company of America (1967-71); Stage I of the United Nations Development in New York (1969-75); the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1969-77); the headquarter of Fiat in Turin, Italy (1973-76), the Center for the Arts at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts (1975); the Financial Services Headquarters of John Deere & Co. in Moline, Illinois (1978); the redesign of the Zoo in Central Park, New York (1988); the Bank of America Plaza in Atlanta, Georgia (1992); the corporate headquarters building of Corning Inc. in Corning, New York (1994); the Museum of Jewish History in New York (1997); Shiodome City Center in Tokyo (2003); and the headquarters of Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, DC (2005).  

After Dinkeloo's death in 1981, Roche continued to run KRJD with two partners.  

Roche was a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA), an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Architects of Ireland (Hon.FIAI), and an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (ARIBA). He was also a member of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca in Italy, and the Académie d'Architecture in France.  

Awards he received include the Total Design Award from the American Society of Industrial Design (ASID) in 1976;  the Grand Prix medal from the Académie d'Architecture in France in 1977; the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1982; the Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1990; and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1993.  Roche became a U.S. citizen in 1964. He died in Guilford, Connecticut on 1 March 2019