George Thomas Rockrise, FAIA, ASLA, AICP (November 25, 1916 – July 7, 2000) was an American architect, landscape architect, and urban planner of Japanese and English descent based in San Francisco, California. During his career he practiced both nationally and internationally, had a distinguished career in public service, and received numerous honors and awards.
Early life and education
Rockrise was born in New York City to Iwahiko Tsumanuma (also known as Thomas S. Rockrise, one of the first American-educated Japanese architects in the United States) and Agnes Margaret (Asbury) Rockrise, of Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in New York City and later at Saranac Lake, New York, where his father was under treatment for tuberculosis. In high school he was an Eagle Scout and built and operated his own ham radio.
Rockrise received his Bachelor of Architecture degree from his father's alma mater, Syracuse University in 1938. At that time, the program at Syracuse taught the Beaux Arts method of classical design. While attending Syracuse, Rockrise received several scholarships. Of note was a Flight Training Scholarship from the U.S. Army Air Corps his senior year, leading him to receive his pilot's license upon graduation.
After working a few years in architecture and construction, Rockrise was awarded concurrently a Graduate Fellowship at Columbia University and an Advanced Flight Scholarship from the U.S. Army Air Corps for advanced flight training. With war on the world's horizon, Rockrise made what he considered to be a difficult decision. He chose to decline the Advanced Flight Scholarship, instead to attend Columbia University, where he received his M.S. in Architecture in 1941.
Career
Upon graduating from Columbia University, Rockrise accepted a job in the Canal Zone of Panama, where he was residing when the U.S. entered World War II, December 7, 1941. Rockrise remained in Panama for the duration of the war, working as an architect for the Canal Zone, U.S. Navy, the U.S. Corps of Engineers and the Caribbean Defense Command at various times. He also established a private architectural practice in Panama City. Rockrise was never able to fulfill his desire to fly for the U.S. Navy, as he was repeatedly denied a commission because of his Japanese ancestry.
Returning to New York City after the war, Rockrise went to work for Edward D. Stone, FAIA (’58), who at this time was one of the leading American architects exploring modernism. Rockrise worked on various projects including the El Panama Hotel (Panama City, Panama), coordinating the firm’s work with Thomas D. Church, FASLA, in San Francisco, then the country’s leading modern landscape architect. As Rockrise stated, “I was chosen to go to San Francisco—and I think this was really the turning point—to coordinate the architectural drawings with Tommy’s landscape drawings. Perhaps this was because they had to be done in the metric system, and perhaps because the notes had to be in Spanish, and I spoke Spanish.” Subsequently, Rockrise worked for the architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where he was assigned by design partner Gordon Bunshaft, FAIA, to be a staff designer for the United Nations Headquarters Building. As one of the ‘Backroom Boys,’ Rockrise worked under Sven Markelius and Le Corbusier, two of the group of world-renowned architects who designed the United Nations complex.
In 1947, Rockrise was invited to become an associate in the landscape architecture office of Thomas D. Church in California. Church is the recognized pioneer in the modernist mid-century landscape style of the day. Among other projects, Rockrise worked with then associate, Lawrence Halprin, FASLA (’69), on the award winning design for the landscaping of the Donnell residence in Sonoma County, California. Rockrise was responsible for the design of the bath house and lanai. The 1948 garden is “famous for its unusual abstracted forms” and is considered a “Modernist icon.”
In these early years, 1949–1953, Rockrise also taught at the School of Architecture at the University of California at Berkeley, and was the faculty advisor for the student chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).