Norman Jaffe
Encyclopedia
Norman Jaffe was an American
architect
, most noted for his contemporary
residential
architecture
, and his "strikingly sculptural beach house
s" on Eastern Long Island
, in southeastern New York
. He is credited with pioneering the "design of rustic Modernist houses in the Hamptons", and with being an innovator in using natural materials and passive solar
forms of design, and urban design
.
to poor immigrant parents from Poland
and Latvia
. During the period of the depression
he was sent to live with relatives in Seattle where he attended high school. After finishing school, he joined the military in 1954, serving with the United States Army Corps of Engineers
in Japan during the Korean War
.
In 1956 Jaffe finished his military service and returned to the United States. He began studying architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, later transferring to the University of California at Berkeley where he received his Bachelor's degree
in 1958. Jaffe went on to complete study at Art Students League of New York
and Art Institute of Chicago
. While at Berkely, Jaffe studied under noted residential architects William Wurster
and Joseph Esherick
who co-founded the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. After receiving his degree, Jaffe began working for Esherick and in 1961 he left his wife and son and moved to New York to work for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
, one of the largest architectural firms in the world, and later, for Philip Johnson
.
In 1965, Jaffe's estranged wife, Barbara Cochran, was living in Glen Ellyn
, Illinois
with their 7-year-old son Miles and her parents when she was killed in an motor vehicle accident. Miles moved to New York to live with his father.
Jaffe had begun visiting Long Island in the 1960s, and in 1973 he moved to Bridgehampton where he opened an architectural practice. He became the most prolific architect in the Hamptons at that time, designing more than 50 local houses, from small summer homes to large estates. His work in the Hamptons included a golf club, synagogue
and restaurant
.
The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects
gave Jaffe an award in 1977 for a beach house he designed on Long Island and by 1979 it was reported that Jaffe had become so popular and well known that he was able to choose what jobs he would take and was turning down nine out of 10 prospective clients attending his offices.
In 1985 Jaffe met Sarah Stahl at a Hampton Jitney
bus stop. They were married in 1986 and had two sons, Will and Max.
In 1987 Jaffe donated his services to the Jewish Center in the Hamptons and designed their new synagogue. The Gates of the Grove Synagogue has been described as Jaffe's "masterpiece...(with) a remarkable blend of material and spiritual substance", and "one of the finest examples of modern synagogue design in America". Jaffe's design won awards for contemporary religious design. Paul Goldberger
, a Pulitzer Prize
-winning architecture writer from The New Yorker
, later described the Gates of the Grove as Jaffe's "greatest work" and a "truly sacred space...", and architecture historian Alastair Gordon said Jaffe's design for the Gates of the Grove "was the jewel in the crown of his turbulent career".
Jaffe was inducted as a fellow
of the American Institute of Architects in 1991 and the Smithsonian Institution
honored the occasion by exhibiting his work. It was reported he was "commanding design fees of as much as half a million dollars."
One of Jaffe's final designs was the office building at 565 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
. It was finished in 1993. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger from The New Yorker, described the building as "quite remarkable...a stunning modernist object (which) respects the street, and in so doing, it enriches the city."
Jaffe assisted a number of charities, including medical relief programs in East Africa
and local charities on Long Island. He also donated his professional services to charities and completed a design for a children's hospital
in Croatia
.
Early in the morning of August 19, 1993, Jaffe disappeared while swimming off a beach in Bridgehampton, New York, where he was known to often swim alone. His clothes and other personal items were found unattended on the beach. He had only learned to swim in his 50s and his friends and family were reported as saying he was an over-confident but poor swimmer. A month later, fishermen found a human pelvic bone on the beach near where Jaffe disappeared. The Suffolk County
, New York, Medical examiner
used medical records and x-ray
s to confirm the remains belonged to Jaffe. His death was presumed to be an accidental drowning
. On September 24, 1993, he was buried at Shaare Pardes Accabonac Grove Cemetery. Norman Jaffe was survived by his wife, Sarah Jaffe Turnbull, and three sons, Miles (from his marriage to Barbara Cochran), Will and Max.
in New York. Between 1967 and his death in 1993 he designed more than 50 houses in the Hamptons.
From July 24 to September 18, 2005, the Parrish Art Museum
in Southhampton
, New York, presented "Romantic Modernist: The Life and Work of Norman Jaffe, Architect", the first major exhibition examining Jaffe's life and work. The curator of the exhibition was architectural historian
Alastair Gordon, who is also the author of the book, Romantic Modernist: The Life and Work of Norman Jaffe Architect 1932-1993. The exhibition included architectural sketches and models, plans, photographs, furniture and a short documentary film
featuring Paul Goldberger
, architecture critic from The New Yorker, and archive footage of Jaffe himself.
On December 18, 2008, the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
at Columbia University
in New York announced it had acquired Jaffe's architectural archives. The collection includes architectural drawing
s, presentations and photographs from Jaffe's professional practice and covers more than 80 projects from the 1960s to the 1990s.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
, most noted for his contemporary
Contemporary architecture
Contemporary architecture is generally speaking the architecture of the present time.The term contemporary architecture is also applied to a range of styles of recently built structures and space which are optimized for current use....
residential
House
A house is a building or structure that has the ability to be occupied for dwelling by human beings or other creatures. The term house includes many kinds of different dwellings ranging from rudimentary huts of nomadic tribes to free standing individual structures...
architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, and his "strikingly sculptural beach house
Beach house
A beach house is a house on or near a beach, generally used as a vacation or second home for people who commute to the house on weekends or during vacation periods....
s" on Eastern Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
, in southeastern New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. He is credited with pioneering the "design of rustic Modernist houses in the Hamptons", and with being an innovator in using natural materials and passive solar
Passive solar building design
In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, and distribute solar energy in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer...
forms of design, and urban design
Urban design
Urban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times has...
.
Biography
Norman Jaffe was born in 1932 in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
to poor immigrant parents from Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
. During the period of the depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
he was sent to live with relatives in Seattle where he attended high school. After finishing school, he joined the military in 1954, serving with the United States Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
in Japan during the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
.
In 1956 Jaffe finished his military service and returned to the United States. He began studying architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, later transferring to the University of California at Berkeley where he received his Bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in 1958. Jaffe went on to complete study at Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
and Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
. While at Berkely, Jaffe studied under noted residential architects William Wurster
William Wurster
William Wilson Wurster was an American architect and architectural teacher at the University of California, Berkeley and at MIT, best known for his residential designs in California. - Biography :...
and Joseph Esherick
Joseph Esherick
Joseph Esherick was an American architect.Esherick was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1937, Esherick set up practice in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1953 and taught at University of California, Berkeley for many years...
who co-founded the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. After receiving his degree, Jaffe began working for Esherick and in 1961 he left his wife and son and moved to New York to work for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP is an American architectural and engineering firm that was formed in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings; in 1939 they were joined by John O. Merrill. They opened their first branch in New York City, New York in 1937. SOM is one of the largest...
, one of the largest architectural firms in the world, and later, for Philip Johnson
Philip Johnson
Philip Cortelyou Johnson was an influential American architect.In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and later , as a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture...
.
In 1965, Jaffe's estranged wife, Barbara Cochran, was living in Glen Ellyn
Glen Ellyn, Illinois
Glen Ellyn is an affluent village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2000 Census, the village population was 26,999.-Geography:...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
with their 7-year-old son Miles and her parents when she was killed in an motor vehicle accident. Miles moved to New York to live with his father.
Jaffe had begun visiting Long Island in the 1960s, and in 1973 he moved to Bridgehampton where he opened an architectural practice. He became the most prolific architect in the Hamptons at that time, designing more than 50 local houses, from small summer homes to large estates. His work in the Hamptons included a golf club, synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
and restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
.
The New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...
gave Jaffe an award in 1977 for a beach house he designed on Long Island and by 1979 it was reported that Jaffe had become so popular and well known that he was able to choose what jobs he would take and was turning down nine out of 10 prospective clients attending his offices.
In 1985 Jaffe met Sarah Stahl at a Hampton Jitney
Hampton Jitney
Hampton Jitney is a for-profit bus company based in Southampton, NY, operating three primary routes from the East End of Long Island to New York City, as well as charter services, along with local transit bus service in eastern Suffolk County under contract with Suffolk County...
bus stop. They were married in 1986 and had two sons, Will and Max.
In 1987 Jaffe donated his services to the Jewish Center in the Hamptons and designed their new synagogue. The Gates of the Grove Synagogue has been described as Jaffe's "masterpiece...(with) a remarkable blend of material and spiritual substance", and "one of the finest examples of modern synagogue design in America". Jaffe's design won awards for contemporary religious design. Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger is the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where since 1997 he has written the magazine's celebrated "Sky Line" column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City...
, a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning architecture writer from The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, later described the Gates of the Grove as Jaffe's "greatest work" and a "truly sacred space...", and architecture historian Alastair Gordon said Jaffe's design for the Gates of the Grove "was the jewel in the crown of his turbulent career".
Jaffe was inducted as a fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
of the American Institute of Architects in 1991 and the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
honored the occasion by exhibiting his work. It was reported he was "commanding design fees of as much as half a million dollars."
One of Jaffe's final designs was the office building at 565 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. It was finished in 1993. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger from The New Yorker, described the building as "quite remarkable...a stunning modernist object (which) respects the street, and in so doing, it enriches the city."
Jaffe assisted a number of charities, including medical relief programs in East Africa
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
and local charities on Long Island. He also donated his professional services to charities and completed a design for a children's hospital
Children's hospital
A children's hospital is a hospital which offers its services exclusively to children . The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties...
in Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
.
Early in the morning of August 19, 1993, Jaffe disappeared while swimming off a beach in Bridgehampton, New York, where he was known to often swim alone. His clothes and other personal items were found unattended on the beach. He had only learned to swim in his 50s and his friends and family were reported as saying he was an over-confident but poor swimmer. A month later, fishermen found a human pelvic bone on the beach near where Jaffe disappeared. The Suffolk County
Suffolk County, New York
Suffolk County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York on the eastern portion of Long Island. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,493,350. It was named for the county of Suffolk in England, from which its earliest settlers came...
, New York, Medical examiner
Medical examiner
A medical examiner is a medically qualified government officer whose duty is to investigate deaths and injuries that occur under unusual or suspicious circumstances, to perform post-mortem examinations, and in some jurisdictions to initiate inquests....
used medical records and x-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
s to confirm the remains belonged to Jaffe. His death was presumed to be an accidental drowning
Drowning
Drowning is death from asphyxia due to suffocation caused by water entering the lungs and preventing the absorption of oxygen leading to cerebral hypoxia....
. On September 24, 1993, he was buried at Shaare Pardes Accabonac Grove Cemetery. Norman Jaffe was survived by his wife, Sarah Jaffe Turnbull, and three sons, Miles (from his marriage to Barbara Cochran), Will and Max.
Legacy
During his 35 year career as an architect, Norman Jaffe built more than 600 projects and received numerous architecture awards. His work was displayed in museums exhibitions around the United States and overseas, including at the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in New York. Between 1967 and his death in 1993 he designed more than 50 houses in the Hamptons.
From July 24 to September 18, 2005, the Parrish Art Museum
Parrish Art Museum
The Parrish Art Museum is the oldest cultural institution on the East End of Long Island, uniquely situated within one of the most concentrated creative communities in the United States...
in Southhampton
Southampton (town), New York
The Town of Southampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, U.S., partly on the South Fork of Long Island. As of the United States 2000 Census, the town had a total population of 54,712...
, New York, presented "Romantic Modernist: The Life and Work of Norman Jaffe, Architect", the first major exhibition examining Jaffe's life and work. The curator of the exhibition was architectural historian
History of architecture
The history of architecture traces the changes in architecture through various traditions, regions, overarching stylistic trends, and dates.-Neolithic architecture:Neolithic architecture is the architecture of the Neolithic period...
Alastair Gordon, who is also the author of the book, Romantic Modernist: The Life and Work of Norman Jaffe Architect 1932-1993. The exhibition included architectural sketches and models, plans, photographs, furniture and a short documentary film
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
featuring Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger
Paul Goldberger is the Architecture Critic for The New Yorker, where since 1997 he has written the magazine's celebrated "Sky Line" column. He also holds the Joseph Urban Chair in Design and Architecture at The New School in New York City...
, architecture critic from The New Yorker, and archive footage of Jaffe himself.
On December 18, 2008, the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is one of twenty-five libraries in the Columbia University Library System and is located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the City of New York. It is the largest architecture library in the world...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York announced it had acquired Jaffe's architectural archives. The collection includes architectural drawing
Architectural drawing
An architectural drawing or architect's drawing is a technical drawing of a building that falls within the definition of architecture...
s, presentations and photographs from Jaffe's professional practice and covers more than 80 projects from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Publications
- Gordon, Alastair, Romantic Modernist: The Life and Work of Norman Jaffe Architect 1932-1993, Monacelli, July 21, 2005, ISBN 978-1580931564