Joseph Gonzalez

Biography

Gonzalez was born in Brooklyn, New York, and is of Cuban descent. He attended Brooklyn Technical High School where he received a high school diploma in 1968. He then studied architecture at Oklahoma State University-Stillwater from 1969 to 1974, earning a Bachelor of Architecture degree. After completing his undergraduate education, Joseph Gonzalez moved to Chicago and joined the architecture and engineering firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Notable architects and engineers in the Chicago office of SOM at that time included Bruce Graham, Fazlur Khan, and Walter Netsch. His career at SOM spanned 23 years, from 1974 to 1997. He was assigned to head a design studio in 1979 and was made general partner in 1985. Buildings completed under his design direction include important cultural venues such as the revitalized Chicago Symphony Center, Civic Opera House, Ravinia Festival Martin Theatre, the pavilion housing Chagall's Four Seasons sculpture in Chicago's Chase Plaza, and a new building for the Sioux City Art Center. His commercial work at SOM includes 303 West Madison and One North Franklin office buildings, Chicago; Rowes Wharf, Boston; Spiegel Corporate Headquarters, Downers Grove, Illinois; Grupo ALFA Headquarters, Monterrey, Mexico; the LG Gangnam Tower Headquarters and Performing Arts Hall, Seoul, South Korea; Plaza Rakyat Mixed Use Center, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the Regent of Hong Kong Hotel, Hong Kong, China. In 1998, Joseph Gonzalez opened his own practice, Gonzalez Partners, together with three former SOM architects: Charles Hasbrouck, Gregory Beard, and David Valaskovic. With Gonzalez as design principal, the firm's portfolio includes major public projects for City of Chicago agencies, including the redesign of three rapid transit stations for the Chicago Transit Authority, the Chicago, Sedgwick, and Armitage stations along the Brown Line and three new classroom buildings for the Chicago Public Schools, Davis Shields Elementary School, Columbia Explorers Academy, and Little Village High School. Gonzalez also designed (unbuilt to date) a new cultural facility with theaters, galleries, shopping, and dining for the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago. Other significant work from this period in his career include the Marklund Center at Mill Creek in Geneva, Illinois, a 25-acre campus with a 40,000 square foot training and development center, and four 16-bed residential units serving infants, children, and adults with profound developmental disabilities; and the Metropolitan Park Apartments, Grand Rapids, Michigan, a four story apartment building with 24 two- and three-bedroom affordable rental units; and the design for a new corporate headquarters office tower for SLGC (unbuilt) in Pudong, Shanghai, China. In 2007, Gonzalez moved into the position of design principal at the Chicago-based architecture firm of DeStefano + Partners where his focus for the next three years was on international projects. His work includes a luxury three-tower hotel and residential complex, a 38-story residential development, and a master plan for a 70-acre mixed-use development at the Dubai Marina, Dubai, UAE; a 15-story corporate headquarters building for the Arab Jordan Investment Bank, Amman, Jordan; a mixed-use complex with 2 office towers, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Corporativo Ejercito 23, a 22-story office building, Mexico City, Mexico; and Corporativo Valle Oriente, an 11-story, 250,000-square-foot sustainable office building, Monterrey, Mexico. Joseph Gonzalez assumed his current position as director of design at Ghafari Associates in 2010. His recent buildings include the Jesse White Community Center, Chicago, Illinois, a 40,000-square-foot recreational and educational facility serving as the headquarters for the Jesse White Tumbling Team and the Chicago Park District's gymnastics program. He is also working on a headquarters and manufacturing campus in Fort Collins, Colorado, and manufacturing facilities in Loves Park and Niles, Illinois, for Woodward, an international corporation that designs and manufactures aerospace and energy control systems.

Awards and honors

Joseph Gonzalez is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Projects under his design direction have won over 30 major awards for design excellence, including three national AIA Institute Honor Awards, eight AIA Chicago Chapter Distinguished Building Awards, two National School Boards Design Awards, and three Society of American Registered Architects Design Excellence Awards, as well as awards and citations from national and local engineering and construction organizations, such as ASHRAE, the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, the Chicago Lighting Institute, the United States Institute of Theater Technology, the Illinois Masonry Institute, the Chicago Building Congress, and Building Design and Construction magazine. Civic organizations that have given special recognition to Gonzalez' design excellence and community contribution include the Highland Park Historic Preservation Commission and Friends of Downtown (Chicago).

Publications

By and About Joseph Gonzalez:

303 West Madison

Chicago Symphony Center

Spiegel Headquarters

Metropolitan Park Apartments

Chagall Pavilion at Chase Tower

Applied Computing Devices

Sioux City Art Center

One North Franklin

American Broadcasting Company (ABC)