Gunnar Birkerts

The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Gunnar Birkerts

Gunnar Birkerts (Latvian: Gunārs Birkerts, January 17, 1925 – August 15, 2017) was a Latvian-American architect. He was born in Riga, Latvia.

For most of his career, Birkerts was based in the metropolitan area of Detroit, Michigan. Some of his designs include the Corning Museum of Glass and 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.

In 2014, he designed the National Library of Latvia in Riga, Latvia, aka the Castle of Light, whose architectural form references and draws inspiration from Latvian folklore.

Birkerts died at the age of 92 on August 15, 2017 at his home in Needham, Massachusetts of congestive heart failure.

Gunnar Birkerts Media

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  Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, 1973, (now: Marquette Plaza), in its original configuration.

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  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.

Other websites

• Gunnar Birkerts Architects, Inc.
• "Gunnar Birkerts papers 1930–2002", at the Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
• Biography Archived 2012-04-04 at the Wayback Machine (in Latvian)