Architect Talk: John Ronan

Speaker:

• John Ronan FAIA

  

  John Ronan FAIA is the founding principal of John Ronan Architects in Chicago, founded in 1999. He serves as Lead Designer on all projects the office undertakes and is known for his abstract yet sensuous work which explores materiality and atmosphere. John holds a Master of Architecture degree with distinction from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Michigan. In 1999, he was a winner in the Townhouse Revisited Competition staged by the Graham Foundation and his firm was the winner of the prestigious Perth Amboy High School Design Competition in 2004, a two-stage international design competition to design a 472,000 square foot high school in New Jersey. In December 2000, he was named as a member of the Design Vanguard by Architectural Record magazine, and in January 2005 he was selected to The Architectural League of New York’s Emerging Voices program. John has lectured widely and his work has been exhibited internationally, including the Art Institute of Chicago and The Architectural League of New York’s Urban Center. His work has been covered extensively by the international design press, and a monograph on his work, entitled Explorations, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2010. A publication entitled, The Poetry Foundation, on his eponymous building by the Center for American Architecture & Design at the University of Texas was published in 2015. In 2022, a publication on the firm’s work entitled, Out of the Ordinary, the work of John Ronan Architects was published by Actar. His firm has been the recipient of three AIA Institute National Honor Awards—for the Poetry Foundation and The Gary Comer Youth Center, and the Ed Kaplan Family Institute for Innovation and Tech Entrpreneurship at the Illinois Institute of Technology. In 2016, his firm was one of seven international finalists for the Obama Presidential Center. In 2017, John was named an Architecture Award winner by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2024, his firm was named winner of the competition to design the Fallen Journalists Memorial on the Mall in Washington. 

  John is currently the John & Jeanne Rowe Endowed Professor in Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. His interests include drawing, writing and fly fishing. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters.