Newly Released: A. Lawrence Kocher, American Architect
Authors: Luis Pancorbo + Inés Martín-Robles
Spring 2025
Applied Research + Design Publishing
A new book, A. Lawrence Kocher, co-authored by Luis Pancorbo and Inés Martín-Robles, offers a fresh perspective on the influential yet often underrecognized architect, educator, and editor. The book reframes Kocher’s work within the broader narrative of American modern architecture, highlighting his unique approach to design, prefabrication, and vernacular traditions.
While Kocher is best known for his editorial leadership at Architectural Record, this volume sheds light on his independent architectural practice, which has received little critical attention. The authors examine how Kocher reinterpreted American domestic traditions—ranging from early colonial dwellings to transitional housing forms—integrating these with modernist principles and industrial techniques to envision a new national architectural language.
Kocher’s multidisciplinary career set him apart from his contemporaries. His work seamlessly connected his roles as a designer, educator, and scholar, with many of his built projects serving as direct experiments in prefabrication and material innovation. His architectural designs often functioned as extensions of his teaching and writing, illustrating the deep interplay between practice and theory in his career.
By repositioning Kocher as a key figure in the evolution of American modernism, this book provides new insights into his lasting impact on architecture and design.
Image
...
This revelatory study, devoted to the extraordinarily rich career of the American architect A. Lawrence Kocher, focuses not only on his work as a practicing architect but also on his career as an educator and as an editor of the distinguished magazine, Architectural Record. Partnering with Albert Frey on the design of a number of small canonical modern houses in the early 30s, including the prefabricated Aluminaire House recently reassembled in Palm Springs, Kocher participated directly in the evolution of a modern American house that was quite distinct in character from the ideology of the 1932 International Style.
—Kenneth B. Frampton, Professor Emeritus, Architecture, GSAPP Columbia University and 2022 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medalist in Architecture
...
Authors
Luis Pancorbo and Inés Martín-Robles are Associate Professors at the University of Virginia School of Architecture. Their professional practice focuses on the submission of international architectural competitions. They founded Pancorbo Architects in 2004. Since then, they won 17 awards in different competitions and 20 awards for their built work, which has been published in more than 60 international architectural magazines.
