James Stewart Polshek, academic and designer of important public architecture, has passed away aged 92

A rare modest figure in a crowded era of star architects and designers has passed away as the New York Times is reporting the death of James Stewart Polshek on Friday at his home in Manhattan.  Polshek was known as the designer of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Newtown Creek sewage plant in Brooklyn, and Newseum in Washington, D.C., among many others. His colleagues recalled him as a progressive champion who balanced the ideological pull of high modernism with a sensitivity to different forms, themes, building types, and architectural styles. In a statement published by the Architectural Record, Polshek’s former firm partner Richard Olcott said he was "ahead of his time." William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park. Photo credit: © Timothy Hursley.Born in Akron, Ohio in 1930, Polshek studied architecture at nearby Case Western Reserve University and later Yale before pursuing a Fulbright Scholarship in Copenhagen and beginnin...

James Stewart Polshek, academic and designer of important public architecture, has passed away aged 92

A rare modest figure in a crowded era of star architects and designers has passed away as the New York Times is reporting the death of James Stewart Polshek on Friday at his home in Manhattan. 

Polshek was known as the designer of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Newtown Creek sewage plant in Brooklyn, and Newseum in Washington, D.C., among many others. His colleagues recalled him as a progressive champion who balanced the ideological pull of high modernism with a sensitivity to different forms, themes, building types, and architectural styles. In a statement published by the Architectural Record, Polshek’s former firm partner Richard Olcott said he was "ahead of his time."

William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park. Photo credit: © Timothy Hursley.

Born in Akron, Ohio in 1930, Polshek studied architecture at nearby Case Western Reserve University and later Yale before pursuing a Fulbright Scholarship in Copenhagen and beginnin...