Paul Koralek (7 April 1933 – 7 February 2020) was a British

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

and founding member of the architecture company

Ahrends, Burton and Koralek __NOTOC__ ABK Architects (previously Ahrends, Burton and Koralek) is a British architectural practice. It was founded in 1961 by Peter Ahrends (born 1933, Berlin, Germany), Richard Burton (born 1933 in London, United Kingdom, died 2017), and Paul ...

, best known for designing in the

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

style, as seen in buildings such as the Berkeley Library, part of the

Library of Trinity College Dublin The Library of Trinity College Dublin () serves Trinity College Dublin, Trinity College and the University of Dublin. It is a legal deposit or "copyright library", under which, publishers in Republic of Ireland, Ireland must deposit a copy of ...

Life and education

Paul George Koralek was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

on 7 April 1933. His family left Austria in 1938 after the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...

, the reunification of Austria and then-Nazi Germany. From 1951 he studied at the

Architectural Association School of Architecture The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest Independent school (United Kingdom), independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in t ...

, London, graduating in 1956. After graduation, he worked with Philip Powell. Later, whilst working in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

with

Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981), was a Hungarian-born modernist architect and furniture designer. At the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair, which ''The New York Times'' have called some of the most im ...

, Koralek submitted and won the competition to design the new Berkeley Library in Trinity College Dublin. In the same year, 1961, he founded the architectural company Ahrends, Burton and Koralek with his former classmates, Peter Ahrends and

Richard Burton Richard Burton (; born Richard Walter Jenkins Jr.; 10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was a Welsh actor. Noted for his baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable pe ...

Career

Koralek was known for his Brutalist style which is epitomised in the Berkeley Library at Trinity College Dublin. Following this, Trinity also appointed him the principal architect to the adjoining Arts Building in 1969, formally opened in 1978. Koralek was again commissioned by Trinity to design the new Dental Hospital and School on Lincoln Place in the 1990s. He was appointed CBE in the

1984 Birthday Honours Queen's Birthday Honours are announced on or around the date of the Queen's Official Birthday in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The dates vary, both from year to year and from country to country. All are published in supple ...

National Life Stories National Life Stories is an independent charitable trust and limited company (registered as the ‘National Life Story Collection’) based within the British Library Oral History section, whose key focus and expertise is oral history fieldwork. S ...

conducted an oral history interview (C467/118) with Paul Koralek in 2014 for its Architects Lives' collection held by the British Library.National Life Stories, 'Koralek, Paul (1 of 15) National Life Stories Collection: Architects' Lives', The British Library Board, 2014
Retrieved 10 April 2018 He died on 7 February 2020 at the age of 86.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Koralek, Paul 1933 births 2020 deaths British architects Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Royal Academicians Austrian emigrants to the United Kingdom Brutalist architects Alumni of the Architectural Association School of Architecture