AA alumnus and co-founder of ABK architects, Paul Koralek, has died aged 86. Paul joined the AA in 1951. His desk in first year was positioned alongside the desks of Peter Ahrends and Richard Burton, and a close friendship began that was to last a lifetime. After completing their AA Diploma in 1956 they gained a scholarship to explore the architecture of Turkey and Persia for 5 months. Arriving in Isfahan unannounced, they knocked on the door of an older AA alumnus, Ali Baktiar, who welcomed them in his home and hosted them for 6 weeks. A beautiful record of that stay was published years later in 2016, with photographs by John Donat who joined them on the trip.
After brief periods working for Powell and Moya and for Marcel Breuer, in 1961 Paul Koralek won a major competition for the Berkeley Library at Trinity College, Dublin, which prompted the three friends to come together to form Ahrends Burton and Koralek, and over the following four decades they went on to make an important contribution to higher education architecture in the UK. Paul was responsible for the Arts Faculty building, also at Trinity College, a building for St Andrew’s College, Booterstown, and Portsmouth Polytechnic Library amongst others. ABK won the competition for the National Gallery extension in London, which was infamously described by Prince Charles as a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved elegant friend” triggering the commission of the existing extension by Venturi Scott Brown. They were also instrumental in the first stages of master planning for the AA’s Hooke Park campus, bringing Frei Otto on board to collaborate with them on the design of the prototype house (now the Hooke Park Refectory) and the main workshop building.
Paul passed away on 7 February 2020 and is survived by two daughters, Katy Ricks and Lucy Linderoth. Any AA member or alumni wishing to get in touch with the family and/or to attend the funeral in Sussex on 5 March should contact the AA membership office on membership@aaschool.ac.uk for further information.