Emery Roth

The Beresford

The Eldorado.

Emery Roth (born Róth Imre, 1871 – August 20, 1948) was an American architect who designed many of the definitive New York City hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 30s, incorporating Beaux-Arts and Art Deco details. Born in Gálszécs, Austria-Hungary (now Slovakia) to a Hungarian Jewish family, he emigrated to the United States at the age of 13 after his family fell into poverty upon his father's death. He began his architectural apprenticeship as a draftsman in the Chicago offices of Burnham & Root, working on the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. There he met Richard Morris Hunt, who was impressed with his skills and invited Roth to work in his office in New York. Following Hunt's premature death in 1895, Roth moved to the office of Ogden Codman, Jr., a designer and decorator with a Newport clientele. In the interwar years, the firm of Emery Roth delivered some of the most influential examples of architecture for apartment houses in the at the time fashionable beaux art-style, especially in Manhattan. In 1938, Roth included his sons Julian and Richard as partners.

Work by Emery Roth

Emery Roth & Sons

In spite of the inclusion of Julian and Richard Roth it was not until after 1947 that Roth changed the firm's name to Emery Roth & Sons, one year before his death.^[1] Julian (1901-1992) specialized in construction costs and building materials and technology, while Richard (1904-1987) was named the firm's principal architect. In the 1950s and 1960s Emery Roth & Sons became the most influential architectural firm in New York and contributed substantially in changing the appearance of Midtown and Lower Manhattan. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the firm was also hired as associate architects in large-scale projects like the Pan Am Building (1963), the World Trade Center (1966 -1973) and the Citicorp Center (1977). In the early 1960s, Richard Roth's son, Richard Roth, Jr. (b. 1933) became the third generation to join the firm, eventually rising to chief architect and shareholder. As the firm expanded and diversified over six decades, it remained a family business through the 1990s. In 1996, the firm ceased to operate, apparently because of financial distress.^[2] Emery's great-grandson Richard Lee Roth is currently employed in the architectural profession and resides in South Florida.

The extensive architectural records and papers of both Emery Roth and Emery Roth & Sons are now held in the Department of Drawings & Archives at the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia University.

Work by Emery Roth & Sons

The Look Building (1949).

The Uris Building (1970), now known as Paramount Plaza.

The MetLife Building (1963).

Citigroup Center (1977)

The General Motors Building (1968).

7 World Trade Center (1987 - 2001)

External links

• NYC-architecture: Emery Roth
• Emery Roth: a more extended list of structures
• Emery Roth & Sons architectural records and papers, Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University

References

• Steven Ruttenbaum Mansions in the Cloud: The Skyscraper Palazzi of Emery Roth (1986)