John Gerard Dinkeloo was an American architect who was active during the 20th century. He was a principal in the architectural firm Roche-Dinkeloo. A quiet and unassuming man, Dinkeloo chose to step away from the limelight along with his equally modest partner Kevin Roche, though both had designed some of the most iconic buildings in the world.
Dinkeloo was born in Holland, Michigan, to William Dinkeloo and Bessie (nee) Brouwer in 1918.
University and early career
Dinkeloo went to Hope College in his hometown, then finished his education at the University of Michigan in 1942, received a Bachelor in Architectural Engineering.
World War II
After graduating, Dinkeloo joined the United States Navy and entered WWII, where he commissioned as a lieutenant and served in the Naval Construction Battalion otherwise known as the Seebees.
Post-World War II
Dinkeloo joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago, first as a designer and later as Chief of Production.
After Eero Saarinen's untimely death in 1961, Dinkeloo and fellow partners, Kevin Roche and Joseph N. Lacy, continued the Saarinen firm after they moved to Hamden, Connecticut. There, the firm moved into a home bought by Eero Saarinen, and the firm was renamed Roche Dinkeloo & Associates that same year. John Dinkeloo was head of Saarinen's Technical Department who was keenly aware of the latest innovations using avante-garde building materials from glass to the new composites.[1] Dinkeloo, as his partner Roche, remained unpretentious throughout his career.
His interest into exploring new materials or products was, as he stated, "brought about by the lack of research in construction materials." Two materials that he particularly hastened in developing were weathering steel and reflective glass which changed the face of architecture. Weathering steel received its first architectural application in the Deere & Co. Administrative Center in 1964, the Ford Foundation Building, the Knights of Columbus Tower, and the adjoining Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Reflective glass was first used in the Bell Telephone Laboratories Development Center of 1962. The glass proved to be so successful in its reflective quality that eventually the entire building was sheathed in mirror glass.[2]
In 1951, he joined the firm of Eero Saarinen and Associates.[3] His future partner, Kevin Roche (1922-2019), joined the firm in 1951. Dinkeloo became the Principal Technical developer and head of Production to Saarinen and assisted him on all projects from that time until Saarinen's death in September 1961.
Following this, Roche and Dinkeloo's first major commission was the Oakland Museum of California, a complex for the art, natural history, and cultural history of California with a design featuring interrelated terraces and roof gardens.[5] The city was planning a monumental building to house natural history, technology, and art, and Roche provided a unique concept: a building that is a series of low-level concrete structures covering a four block area, on three levels, the terrace of each level forming the roof of the one below, i.e. a museum (in three sections) with a park on its roof. This kind of innovative solution went on to become Roche's trademark.
This project was followed by the equally highly acclaimed Ford Foundation Building in New York City, considered the first large-scale architectural building in the U.S. to devote a substantial portion of its space to horticultural pursuits. Its famous atrium was designed with the notion of having urban green-space accessible to all and is an early example of the application of environmental psychology in architecture. The building was recognized in 1968 by Architectural Record as "a new kind of urban space".[6]
Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates has designed numerous corporate headquarters, office buildings, banks, museums, art centers, and even part of the Bronx Zoo. The architectural team of Roche Dinkeloo quickly became the poster child of corporate America building campuses.[7]
When Saarinen's office was designing the Deere & Company Administrative Center in 1964, Dinkeloo pushed the use of exposed steel. He found one kind that had been used for coal-hopper cars in the 1930s, which corroded to yield a dense oxide protective coating. He had a difficult time convincing manufacturers that it could work and would not be too thick to weld. Nonetheless, he pursued this idea and the firm continued to use these materials.
Advances in glass
As early as general manager at Eero Saarinen's form, Dinkeloo showed intense interest in the application of glass at that time. Dinkeloo saw that glass would reduce the heat load.[13] When the firm began designing the Bell Lab Development Center in Holmdel, N.J., in 1962, Dinkeloo, inspired by Bell Lab's work with metallized polyester film on air balloons, developed a process of putting the solution on glass and then laminating the two panes in a vacuum so that it would not stripe. [14]
By the time the firm was designing the John Deere Headquarters Building in Moline, Illinois, Dinkeloo was adding a bronze metal spray to the process.[14] By the mid-1960s, when Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo had officially changed the name of the firm, another period was beginning technically as well as architecturally. "The buildings/products industry was catching up with architectural visions... No longer was there was funding to conduct painstaking research as in the past. Nevertheless, Dinkeloo did continue to refine and investigate new ideas."[14] Some did not take off. "One of the most visually arresting was a glass used for the Irwin Union Bank & Trust addition in Columbus, Indiana."[11] Dinkeloo sprayed metallized film on clear glass in broad stripes alternating with bands of green laminated glass to give the space a pattern and transparency of light filtered through venetian blinds. One of his most significant innovations was the use of metalized, mirror-like glass in exterior walls, which deflects heat and substantially reduces air-conditioning requirements.
Dinkeloo began the investigation of mirrored glass to see how it was made (metal particles were deposited on it in a vacuum chamber). Also at that time (late 1950s), the space industry, and especially Bell Laboratories was using an extra thin metallized polyester film for air balloons. Dinkeloo then found someone laminating the film between two pieces of glass. But he wasn't satisfied completely. Since the metallized film wasn't applied in a vacuum, the glass tended to stripe. By combining the two processes of coating glass with the metallized solution and then laminating the two panes of glass, a reflective glass pane with the properties of safety glass was created.[13]
Dinkeloo's technical developments and refining as well as pioneering new applications of materials for architectural use was applied to many of KRJDA's projects.[11] Dinkeloo was keen in finding ways in which "form and techniques would continue to be inseparable-where architecture, in the best modernist tradition, would draw equally from both a formal image and a technical idea."[2]
Dinkeloo's last project was to develop a more rigid aluminum siding of flat strips for the General Foods in Rye, New York and an insurance building for the John Deere headquarters.
One UN Plaza depicting Roche-Dinkeloo's signature modernist design, showing chamfers or slant backs on northern and southern faces (1975). The Head Office for Bouygues SA Holding company received the “Haute Qualité Environnementale (HQE)” which is the highest certification for environmental quality in building design in France. Headquarters for Santander Central Hispano located in Madrid, Spain. New American Wing for Twentieth Century Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The continuous glass wall at Lucent Technologies in Nuremberg, Germany wraps around the complex to create a unified street facade.Ford Foundation Headquarters The DN Tower 21 in Tokyo, Japan.
Nakamura, Toshio. Kevin Roche, Architecture and Urbanism (A+U) Extra Edition, Tokyo, Japan: The Japan Architect Co. Ltd. Yoshio Yoshida, Publisher, 1987
Hozumi, Toshio et al. Latest Works of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, Architecture & Urbanism, (A+U), No. 211, Tokyo, Japan: The Japan Architect Co., Ltd., April, 1988, No.211.
Hara, Hiroshi and Nobutaka Ashira. America's New Architectural Wave: The Architect Kevin Roche's Appearance on The Scene, SD Space Design No. 63, A Monthly Journal of Art & Architecture, Tokyo, Japan: January 1970.
Miller, Nory. Roche Dinkeloo, General Foods Headquarters, Texas Christian University Visual Arts Center, One Summit Square, Deere Financial Services Hdqrs., & Kevin Roche Interview Global Architecture, GA Document 9, A.D.A. EDITA Tokyo Co., Ltd., February 1984.
Futagawa, Yukio. Roche Dinkeloo, 6 High Rise Projects Deutsche Bank, J. P. Morgan, Design for Two Buildings in Denver, Dallas Competition, High Rise Study in Houston]. Global Architecture, GA Document 12. Tokyo, Japan: A.D.A. EDITA Tokyo Co., Ltd., January 1985.
Miller, Nory. Roche Dinkeloo Cummins Engine Company Corporate Office Building, Columbus Indiana & Conoco Inc. Petroleum Headquarters, Global Architecture, GA Document 14, editing and publishing by Yukio Futagawa, A.D.A. EDITA Tokyo Co., Ltd., photographs, RETORIA: Y. Futagawa & Associated Photographers, December 1985.
Futagawa, Yukio. Roche Dinkeloo, Bouygues Headquarters,Global Architecture, GA Document 22. Tokyo, Japan: A.D.A. EDITA Tokyo Co., Ltd., January 1989.
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References
↑ Dixon, John, ed. (September 1974). "Savvy about steel, game with glass"(PDF). Progressive Architecture. 9. Stamford, CT: Reinhold Publishing Co.: 78–83. Retrieved June 6, 2024. Dinkeloo can claim credit for many other such technical applications and advancements. He borrowed neoprene gaskets from the auto industry to seal the curtain wall system of the General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Mich. (1948-1954).
1 2 Dixon, John, ed. (September 1974). "Savvy about steel, game with glass"(PDF). Progressive Architecture. 9. Stamford, CT: Reinhold Publishing Co.: 78–83. Retrieved June 6, 2024. Dinkeloo can claim credit for many other such technical applications and advancements. He borrowed neoprene gaskets from the auto industry to seal the curtain wall system of the General Motors Technical Center, Warren, Mich. (1948-1954).
1 2 3 "John Dinkeloo, 63, Innovative Architect and Engineer". New York: The New York Times Publishing. The New York Times. June 16, 1981. p.B-39. Retrieved June 8, 2024. An unassuming man who shunned the spotlight, Mr. Dinkeloo was nevertheless well known and widely respected in his profession. While his partner, Kevin Roche, reaped design laurels for the firm, Mr. Dinkeloo's combined skills of architect and engineer led him to a number of technical developments.
1 2 3 Stephen, Suzanne, ed. (October 1981). "In Memorium: John Dinkeloo 1918-1981"(PDF). Skyline: The Architecture and Design Review. New York: Rizolli International - American Institute of Arhitecture: 10. ISSN0162-6981. Retrieved June 8, 2024. Even when refining, instead of pioneering, new applications of materials for architectural use, Dinkeloo was finding ways in which form and technics would continue to be inseparable-where architecture, in the best modernist tradition, would draw equally from both a formal image and a technical idea.
1 2 3 Lefer, Henry (June 1976). "Through a glass"(PDF). Progressive Architecture. 57 (6). Reinhold Publishing Company, Inc.: 49. Retrieved June 25, 2024. In fact, with the urging of such architects as Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo—architects who have consistently pursued the greenhouse ideal—manufacturers have developed new types of glass. One need only look at the glass with strips of mirror coating, giving the effect of Venetian blinds that Roche, Dinkeloo produced for the Irwin Union Bank in Columbus, IN, to be impressed by the results of this experimentation.
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