The number nine has been very, very good to cats, baseball teams, Greek Muses and Beethoven symphonies. Polshek Partnership L.L.P. ”“ the Manhattan firm behind the new The Gateway Center at Westchester Community College ”“ hopes it will be so for the company as well.
Recently, Polshek announced that it has changed its name to Ennead Architects L.L.P., from the Greek term for a group of nine, reflecting the firm”™s nine partners ”“ Joseph Fleischer, Timothy Hartung, Duncan Hazard, Kevin McClurkan, Richard Olcott, Susan Rodriguez, Tomas Rossant, Todd Schliemann and Don Weinreich.
The previous name was that of design counsel James Polshek, who founded the firm in 1963 and retired in 2005, staying on as a consultant. The new name reflects the evolution of an identity from one based on a hierarchy to one shaped by a collaboration.
By any other name Ennead would still be known for its accomplishments in academic architecture, in addition to their many other types of clients. Susan Rodriguez”™s Gateway Center ”“ a synergistic green space that marries WCC”™s business and foreign-language programs ”“ opens Sept. 15. She also designed The Monika A. and Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Visual Arts Center at Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers.
Other Ennead buildings include the William J. Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock, Ark.; the Frederick Phineas & Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, named for the late White Plains resident and his widow; and the renovated Carnegie Hall.
Indeed, Ennead Architects thrives on the creativity of an intellectual environment. Simultaneously, the firm announced the creation of the Ennead Lab, a private foundation dedicated to research, education and advocacy.
“We love working with like-minded people,” Rodriguez said. “Working with academic institutions is really the best for us.”
