News
Widow of pioneer Miami architect donates $500,000 to UM’s School of Architecture
September 1st, 2009 — Marjorie Korach’s gift will name a 1,530-square-foot gallery at the school the Irvin Korach Architecture Gallery, in honor of her late husband
The superlatives flow freely from Marjorie Korach’s lips whenever she describes her late husband, Irvin, who passed away in early 2008.
“The kindest and most trusting person I’ve ever known,” she says, recalling her pioneer architect spouse who built a reputation designing some of Florida’s best-known hospitals.
Now, in a display of philanthropy she says was second nature to her husband, the widow has donated $500,000 to the University of Miami’s School of Architecture, which will use the gift to name a 1,530-square-foot exhibition gallery at its Jorge M. Perez Architecture Center. The newly named Irvin Korach Architecture Gallery hosts up to seven rotating exhibits a year, bringing to South Florida architectural exhibits of national and international significance, as well as giving students and faculty members a venue in which to display their drawings, models, and design projects.
“The Korach name on our gallery will remind students of the lasting influence of architects,” says School of Architecture Dean Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, describing Irvin Korach as one of South Florida’s “architectural pioneers.”
“His buildings and his professional practice remain a powerful legacy,” Plater-Zyberk says.
Among the medical facilities in Florida his firm designed: Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, Boca Community, Holy Cross, Naples Community, the veterans hospitals in Miami and Bay Pines, and Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Miami. (The Cedars Hospital purchased and now occupied by the University of Miami Hospital is a newer structure).
Irvin graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1936, and shortly thereafter secured a ride to Miami. The day before he was scheduled to return to Cleveland, he saw a full moon rising over the ocean, and that’s all it took to convince him that Miami should be his new home.
It was the Depression Era, however, and there was no work to be had in an architectural office. So Irvin took a job, at 25 cents an hour, carrying hot tar up a ladder to roofers. He became friends with architect Donald G. Smith, and in 1938 they started a home-design practice together.
Irvin enlisted in the United States Navy at the start of World War II and volunteered to go with the 1st Marine Division out of Pearl Harbor for the invasion of Guadalcanal. For the remainder of the war, he served as a naval intelligence officer aboard aircraft carriers in the Pacific Theater.
After the war, he returned to Miami, leading the Smith-Korach firm into hospital architecture and eventually incorporating an engineering component into his business. Smith died in 1967.
Irvin served as president of the South Florida Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and was well known for chairing other civic and fellowship organizations. His endowments created the Marjorie and Irvin Korach Center for Alzheimer’s Research at Mount Sinai Aventura Medical Center, the Irvin Korach Patient/Caregiver Seminar of the National Parkinson Foundation, and program sponsorship for WPBT Channel 2 South Florida Public Television.
“His generosity was legend,” says Marjorie Korach. “Large or small, he never turned anyone down.”
When she decided to make a gift to honor her husband, she initially called Case Western, his alma mater, but learned the university no longer had an architecture school. So she contacted UM. “It was a natural fit,” she says. “After all, his career started in Miami and reached its summit in Florida. I just know this is something he would have wanted me to do.”
Marjorie plans to donate to UM’s Paul Buisson Architecture Library some of her husband’s architectural drawings and photos and newspaper clippings on his projects, a cache of material she didn’t even know existed until an associate at her husband’s firm came forward with them.
“I would like the path he traveled and his accomplishments to be remembered,” she says.
