Gunnar Birkerts (Latvian: Gunārs Birkerts, born January 17, 1925 in Riga, Latvia) is a Latvian-American architect who, for most of his career, was based in the metropolitan area of Detroit, Michigan. Some of his designs include the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, The Corning Fire Station, in Corning, New York, Marquette Plaza in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela. His latest project is the National Library of Latvia in 2014 in Riga, Latvia, the National Library called the Castle of Light whose architectural form references and draw inspiration from Latvian folklore.

The Corning fire station facade and floor plan. The building has a strict form where small vehicles are placed in the narrow portion at the tip. All function spaces have been baked into the base of the triangle, such as changing rooms, storage room, dining room, dormitory and office, where all rooms are accessed via a wide corridor.

Biography

Gunnar Birkerts 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. Birkerts 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.

Birkerts initially practiced in the partnership Birkerts and Straub; after that partnership broke up the firm became Gunnar Birkerts and Associates. The 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.

Birkerts joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1959 and taught until 1990. The ACSA (Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture) honored Birkerts with the ACSA Distinguished Professor Award in 1989-90.

Gunnar Birkerts 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. He received an honorary doctorate from Riga Technical University in 1990, the Order of the Three Stars from the Republic of Latvia in 1995 and the Great Medal of the Latvian Academy of Sciences in 2000.

Birkerts now maintains an architectural office in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

His son is noted literary critic Sven Birkerts.

Gunnar Birkerts is noted for designing the new building of National Library of Latvia in Riga.

Birkerts is an honorary professor at The University of Illinois and was the Architect-In-Residence at the American Academy in Rome. He is a member of the Latvian Union of Architects, honorary member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Riga Technical University.

Aside from the national library in Riga, Birkerts has built a number of notable buildings in the United States including the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis, Corning Glass Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the University of Iowa College of Law, the Duluth Public Library in Duluth, Minnesota,[2] and the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela.

G. Birkerts received several awards for his architectural work, notably the Arnold V. Brunner Memorial Prize, Michigan Arts Award, awards by the Michigan Union of Architects, the American Union of Architects in Detroit and student organization Tau Sigma Delta.

Architectural Work

Perkins and Will

• Rockford Memorial Hospital, Rockford, Illinois 1950

Eero Saarinen

• GM Tech Center, Warren, Michigan 1950-1955
• Milwaukee County War Memorial Building, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1950-1955
• Kresge Auditorium at MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts 1953
• Concordia College, Fort Wayne, Indiana 1953
• Irwin Union Bank and Trust, Columbus, Indiana 1954

Minoru Yamasaki

• Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Main Terminal, St. Louis, Missouri 1956
• Reynolds Metals Regional Sales Office, Southfield, Michigan 1959

Personal Work

• Cultural Center, Leopoldville, Belgian Congo, 1958
• Technical University, Ankara, Turkey 1959

Work Done while Faculty at The University of Michigan

• Schwartz Summer Residence, Northville, Michigan 1960
• 1300 Lafayette East Apartments, Detroit, Michigan 1961-1963
• Lillibridge Elementary School, Detroit, Michigan 1962-1963
• People's Federal Savings and Loan Branch, Royal Oak, Michigan 1962-1963
• Marathon Oil Office Building, Detroit, Michigan 1962-1964
• University Reformed Church, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1963-1964
• Detroit Institute of the Arts Master Plan and South Wing, Detroit, Michigan 1964
• Bald Mountain Recreation Facility, Lake Orion, Michigan 1964-1968
• Fisher Administrative Center at the University of Detroit-Mercy, Detroit, Michigan 1964-1966
• Travis Residence, Franklin, Michigan 1964-1965
• Tougaloo College Master Plan, Tougaloo, Mississippi 1965
• Tougaloo College Library and Dormitories, Tougaloo, Mississippi 1965-1972
• Lincoln Elementary School, Columbus, Indiana 1965-1967
• Freeman Residence, Grand Rapids, Michigan 1965-1966
• Massey-Ferguson North American Operations Offices Project, Des Moines, Iowa Unbuilt, 1966
• Vocational Technical Institute Master Plan, Carbondale, Illinois Unbuilt, 1967
• Ford Pavilion at Hemisfair 1968, San Antonio, Texas 1967-1968
• Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1967-1973
• Amsterdam City Hall Project, Amsterdam, Netherlands 1968
• Corning Public Library Project, Corning, New York Unbuilt, 1969
• Corning Public Library II Project, Corning, New York Unbuilt, 1969
• Duluth Public Library, Duluth, Minnesota 1969-1979
• IBM Corporate Computer Center, Sterling Forest, New York 1970-1972
• Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas 1970-1972
• Ford Visitors Reception Center, Dearborn, Michigan Unbuilt, 1971
• Dance Instructional Facility for SUNY Purchase, Purchase, New York 1971-1976
• General Motors Dual-Mode Transportation Study 1973-1974
• Corning Municipal Fire Station, Corning, New York 1973-1974
• Subterranean Urban-Systems Study, Graham Foundation Grant, 1974
• Calvary Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan 1974-1977
• IBM Office Building, Southfield, Michigan 1974-1979
• University of Michigan Law Library Addition, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1974-1981
• United States Embassy, Helsinki, Finland Unbuilt, 1975
• Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York 1976-1980
• University of Iowa College of Law Building, Iowa City, Iowa 1979-1986
• Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament Renovations, Detroit, Michigan Unbuilt Scheme, 1980
• Ferguson Residence (Villa Ginny), Kalamazoo, Michigan 1980-1983
• Uris Library Addition at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 1980-1983
• St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Columbus, Indiana 1980-1988
• Anchorage Library, Anchorage, Alaska Unbuilt, 1981
• Minnesota State Capitol Expansion Project, St. Paul, Minnesota Unbuilt, 1983
• Holtzman and Silverman Office Building, Southfield, Michigan 1983-1989
• Minnesota History Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota Unbuilt, 1984
• Bardha Residence, Birmingham, Michigan 1984-1989
• Domino's Pizza Corporate Headquarters (Domino's Farms), Ann Arbor, Michigan 1984-1998
• Oberlin College Conservatory of Music Library Addition, Oberlin, Ohio 1986-1988
• Schembechler Hall for the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1986-1990
• Papal Altar and Furniture, Pontiac, Michigan 1987
• Novoli I, Florence, Italy Unbuilt, 1987
• Domino's Tower, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1987-1988
• UC-San Diego Library Addition, San Diego, California 1987-1993
• Ohio State University Law School Addition, Columbus, Ohio 1988-1993
• Church of the Servant, Kentwood, Michigan 1988-1994
• Torino I, Turin, Italy Unbuilt, 1989
• Torino II, Turin, Italy Unbuilt, 1989-1990
• Marge Monaghan House, Drummond Island, Michigan 1989-1990
• Sports and Civic Stadium, Venice, Italy Unbuilt, 1989-1992
• United States Embassy, Caracas, Venezuela 1989-1996
• Latvian National Library, Riga, Latvia 1989-2012

Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan

• Grasis Residence, Vail, Colorado 1990-1994
• Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri 1991-1994
• Marriott Library Addition at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 1992-1996
• Novoli II, Florence, Italy Unbuilt, 1993
• Juma Al-Majid Center for Culture and Heritage, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Unbuilt, 1993
• Riga Central Market Restoration and Expansion, Riga, Latvia Unbuilt, 1995
• Cellular Communications Tower at Domino's Farms, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1995
• Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, Detroit, Michigan 1998-2003
• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library, San Jose, California 1998-2004
• Kellogg Library at California State-San Marcos, San Marcos, California 2000-2004
• The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, Riga, Latvia 2002-

Publications

• Birkerts, Gunnar, Gunnar Birkerts -- Metaphoric Modernist, Axel Menges, Stuttgart, Germany 2009; ISBN 978-3-936681-26-0
• Birkerts, Gunnar, Process and Expression in Architectural Form, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman OK 1994; ISBN 0-8061-2642-6
• Birkerts, Gunnar, Subterranean Urban Systems, Industrial Development Division-Institute of Science and Technology, University of Michigan 1974
• Kaiser, Kay, The Architecture of Gunnar Birkerts, American Institute of Architects Press, Washington DC 1989; ISBN 1-55835-051-9
• Martin, William, Gunnar Birkerts and Associates (Yukio Futagawa, editor and photographer), A.D.A. Edita (GA Architect), Tokyo 1982
• Gunnar Birkerts & Associates, IBM Information Systems Center, Sterling Forest, N.Y., 1972; Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1973 (Yukio Futagawa, editor and photographer), A.D.A. EDITA (GA Architecture), Tokyo 1974