Paul George Koralek CBE RA (7 April 1933 – 7 February 2020) was a British architect and founding member of the architecture company Ahrends, Burton and Koralek, best known for designing in the Brutalist style, as seen in buildings such as the Berkeley Library, part of the Library of Trinity College Dublin.[1]

Paul Koralek
Born(1933-04-07)7 April 1933
Vienna, Austria
Died7 February 2020(2020-02-07) (aged 86)
NationalityBritish
Occupationarchitect

Life and education edit

Paul George Koralek was born in Vienna, Austria on 7 April 1933. His family left Austria in 1938 after the Anschluss, the reunification of Austria and then-Nazi Germany. From 1951 he studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, graduating in 1956. After graduation, he worked with Philip Powell.[2] Later, whilst working in New York City with Marcel Breuer, 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.[3][4]

Career edit

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.[3]

He was appointed CBE in the 1984 Birthday Honours.

National Life Stories conducted an oral history interview (C467/118) with Paul Koralek in 2014 for its Architects Lives' collection held by the British Library.[5]

He died on 7 February 2020 at the age of 86.[2][4][6]

References edit

  1. ^ "Ahrends, Burton, & Koralek". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 15 March 2017.
  2. ^ a b "Paul Koralek RA". Royal Academy of Arts. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  3. ^ a b "Koralek, Paul". Archiseek. 6 June 2009. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  4. ^ a b "Trinity Pays Tribute to Architect Paul Koralek". News & Alerts: The Library of Trinity College Dublin. 11 February 2020. Retrieved 11 February 2020.
  5. ^ National Life Stories, 'Koralek, Paul (1 of 15) National Life Stories Collection: Architects' Lives', The British Library Board, 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2018
  6. ^ "Deaths". The Times (London). 11 February 2020. p. 53.