In Memoriam: Jaque T. Robertson, FAIA (1933–2020)

AIA New York regrets to inform our membership of the passing of architect and urban designer Jaquelin “Jaque” Taylor Robertson, FAIA, at the age of 87 on May 9, 2020.

Robertson was known for his large-scale planning projects, including the iconic town of Celebration, Florida for the Disney Development Company. Recognized as a leading voice in the New Urbanism and New Classical Architecture movements, he also designed numerous award-winning houses in the Hamptons.

Equally recognized for his commitment to public service in architecture and urban design, Roberston helped to establish the Urban Design Group in 1965, a special municipal agency intended to help raise the level of public design in the city. Robertson later served as the first director of the Mayor’s Office of Midtown Planning and Development, implementing influential zoning provisions that allowed new skyscrapers to house a mix of offices, apartments, retail stores, and, in the Times Square area, new Broadway theaters.

Robertson served as dean of the architecture school at the University of Virginia before founding the prolific firm Cooper Robertson with his former Yale classmate Alexander Cooper in 1988. Notable projects include the development of New Albany, Ohio as well as the Henry Moore Sculpture Garden at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; the Institute for the Arts & Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the Master Plan for Val d’Europe outside Paris, France; and the Sony Pictures Imageworks Headquarters Building in Culver City, California.

A recipient of many awards and honors, Roberston won a design award in 1991 from AIA for a private home in East Hampton, the same year Cooper Robertson earned a national urban design award from the Institute for Battery Park City. He was also a recipient of the prestigious Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture, as well as the Driehaus Prize.

Below is a tribute from a member of our community.

From John Kirk, AIA, Partner, Cooper Robertson

Over the course of his long, fruitful and rich life, Jaque’s accomplishments were innumerable, extraordinary, and widely varied. He had a staggering breadth of life experiences and a seemingly bottomless well of talents; always setting the bar high, holding to the highest of standards and accepting nothing short of excellence, first in himself, and in his partners and colleagues as well. Jaque mentored, and instilled certain values in, dozens of young architects over his career—many of whom are still with Cooper Robertson, and many others who are practicing elsewhere across the globe. That is, perhaps, his greatest gift to the profession and the culture; perhaps his greatest legacy. We will miss him. He will be roundly missed, and never forgotten.