Alexander Gorlin
Alexander Gorlin
Early in his professional life, Alexander Gorlin, a graduate of the Yale School of Architecture and The Cooper Union, worked with two industry icons—Richard Meier and I. M. Pei. He is Principal of Alexander Gorlin Architects, established in 1987 after he returned from a Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. Gorlin received the 1998 President’s Citation and the 2008 John Q. Hejduk Award. His design portfolio spans all levels of society, from high-end residences to affordable housing, places of worship to educational institutions.
While a student of architecture at Cooper Union and later, while earning his master’s degree at Yale, Gorlin began to assemble a comprehensive architectural library, which continues to be a work in progress. Collections of drawings and photographs spanning the recent and distant past and the historical and critical texts that go with them are as much a source for his design ideas as existing buildings, interiors and landscapes. Gorlin, who has authored many books about architecture, finds inspiration in “spiritual texts, literature, film and painting” and is working on houses in New York, Miami Beach, Kenya and Nova Scotia, apartment towers in New Jersey, a series of synagogues and schools and housing for the working homeless in the South Bronx.
In 2005, Architectural Digest recognized Gorlin as one of the country's “30 Deans of Design” and has named him four times in its AD100 list of leading designers. He became a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 2005. Alexander Gorlin Architects has completed a loft renovation for Daniel Libeskind, 800 affordable homes in East New York, four new public high schools in the Bronx, and The Gorlin at Aqua, a 12-story condo in Miami Beach. Other projects include luxury private residences around the world and LEED-rated supportive housing for the homeless in the Bronx. Alexander Gorlin, with Alexander Gorlin Architects, designed “The Brook,” a residential project by Common Ground in the Bronx, completed in 2010. Common Ground provides supportive housing, and the LEED Silver-certified building holds 120 units for homeless adults, including those with special needs.
Alexander Gorlin Architects is an internationally recognized design firm that for the past two decades has actively sought to embrace a uniquely diverse range of clients. The firm has won numerous awards, most notably AIA Design Awards for House in the Rocky Mountains, Ruskin Place townhouse, and North Shore Hebrew Academy.