Emery Roth (Hungarian: Róth Imre, died August 20, 1948) was a Hungarian-American architect of Hungarian-Jewish descent who designed many New York City hotels and apartment buildings of the 1920s and 1930s, incorporating Beaux-Arts and Art Deco details. His sons continued in the family enterprise, largely expanding the firm under the name Emery Roth & Sons.
Life and career
This World Columbian Exposition pavilion, designed by the young Roth alone, housed a temporary shop for the Menier Chocolate Company. Its design is a direct quotation of the ancient Roman Temple of Vesta, a visual trope that would later cap some of his most famous skyscrapers.
Born in Gálszécs, Kingdom of Hungary (now Sečovce, Slovakia) to a Jewish family, Roth 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. Roth also designed one of his first solo projects at the Exposition: a pavilion that housed a chocolatier.
At the Exposition, Roth 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, Rhode Island, 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 Arts style, especially in Manhattan.
Many of his most notable projects are located on the Upper West Side, specifically Central Park West which is home to the San Remo, the Beresford, the Ardsley, and others. In 1938, Roth included his sons Julian and Richard as partners.
Last of the twin-towered residences, and Roth's choice for his retirement apartment.
Shenandoah Apartments
1929
10 Sheridan Square
The Grasmoor House
1940
2370-2380 Madison Road, Cincinnati Ohio
An amazing 55 unit Art Deco residential condominium.
Emery Roth & Sons
Despite the fact that Roth's sons, Julian and Richard, had joined the firm many years earlier, it was not until 1947 that the firm's name was changed to Emery Roth & Sons, approximately one year before Roth's death.:50Julian (1901–1992) specialized in construction costs and building materials and technology, while Richard (1904–1987) was named the firm's principal architect.:51
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. In that particular period of time Emery Roth & Sons designed dozens of speculative office buildings, mostly with curtain wall facades, which soon became a ubiquitous feature of the city.:51
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 CEO and shareholder.
As the firm expanded and diversified over six decades, it remained a family business through the 1990s. In 1988 Richard Roth Jr's daughter Robyn Roth-Moise joined the firm as comptroller. Richard Roth Jr's son Richard Lee Roth joined the firm in 1982 and became the chief specification writer for Emery Roth & Sons. Both retired from the firm when Richard Roth Jr retired and was replaced as the company's CEO in 1993 by Robert Sobel, Roth's cousin.
Only three years later, in 1996, the firm ceased to operate, apparently because of financial distress. Emery's great-grandson Richard Lee Roth currently works in the architectural profession and resides in South Florida.
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