Wallace Kirkman Harrison
Award Name : AIA Gold Medal
Year of Award : 1967
Award for : Architecture
Location : New Worcester (historical), Massachusetts, United States
Wallace Kirkman Harrison was an American architect. Harrison started his professional career with the firm of Corbett, Harrison & MacMurray, participating in the construction of Rockefeller Center. He is best known for executing large public projects in New York City and upstate, many of them a result of his long and fruitful personal relationship with Nelson Rockefeller, for whom he served as an adviser. He was born on September 28, 1895 in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Harrison studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and in 1921 won a traveling fellowship to Europe and the Middle East. He was one of the architects responsible for Rockefeller Center, New York City (1929–40). The partnership he formed with J. André Fouilhoux in 1935 became Harrison, Fouilhoux and Abramovitz in 1941. Harrison designed the Trylon and Perisphere theme centre at the New York World’s Fair (1939). In 1967, he received the AIA Gold Medal. Harrison’s organizational skills were well utilized in his major projects, such as the United Nations complex and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York City (1962), for which he served as overall design coordinator. He also designed the new Metropolitan Opera House (1965) and its office alterations (1978).