Prominent Colorado Architect Dies Suddenly

By Jonathan Weber , Guest Writer, 1-08-09

	Peter H. Dominick, Jr

Editor’s Note: The following obituary and tributes were provided by Peter Dominick’s firm, 4240 Architecture.

Architect and planner Peter H. Dominick, Jr., FAIA – a fierce steward of the land who combined his passions for nature, cities, art, and travel into a highly successful career – died New Year’s Day after a cross-country skiing excursion in Aspen, Colorado.  He was 67.

The cause was a heart attack, according to his business partners E. Randal Johnson and Thomas Brauer of 4240 Architecture, which is based in both Denver and Chicago, Illinois.  Mr. Dominick had been the firm’s president and chairman.

Over a 40-year-long career, Mr. Dominick founded two design firms and became design director and principal in another with which he merged his office. “His verve and impeccable connections gave him traction internationally with real estate developers, locally with politicians in his home city, and broadly in the design community,” stated Mr. Johnson.

Mssrs. Johnson and Brauer, and the firm’s six Associate Principals, plan to continue to operate the 80-person firm whose 2008 volume reached $10 million.  No one has yet been named to the position Mr. Dominick occupied.

While at 4240 Architecture and UDG, Mr. Dominick designed both the Wilderness and Animal Kingdom Lodges in Orlando, among six built commissions for the Walt Disney organization.  He was also Principal in Charge of the revitalization of Vail, Colorado; the great Platte River Road Monument in Kearney, Nebraska, a museum that is also a unique bridge across a highway; the new Town Center on the site of the old Stapleton Airport; and the transformation of the section of lower Denver called the Central Platte Valley from old rail yards into a thriving neighborhood now known as Riverfront Park.

Mr. Dominick was an active board member of several organizations, notably the Denver Art Museum, the University of Colorado School of Architecture, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Yale University School of Architecture.

Donations have been suggested to the Yale School of Architecture Peter H. Dominick Jr. Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 2038, New Haven, CT. 06521

Tributes

Noted architect Robert A.M. Stern, FAIA, dean of the Yale University School of Architecture, was a friend, sometimes a design-team member, sometimes a competitor.  He stated: “Peter Dominick was a superb architect and a wonderful person.  His deep understanding of and love for the landscape and building traditions of the Rocky Mountain region can be seen in his distinctive architecture.  He was a regionalist in the best sense of the term.  For those lucky enough to have known Peter, the sense of loss is immeasurable; he was full of vitality, generous with his time, optimistic, and caring—a great human being.  I will miss him very much.  He will not ever be replaced among the worthies who have brightened our profession; and not ever forgotten by those whose lives he touched with his special grace.”

4240’s long-standing client, developer Harry Frampton of East West Partners, former chairman of the Urban Land Institute, noted:  “What an incredible person, who made many, many significant contributions to the world of design. He left his mark in so many ways!”

In a mark of respect, the Rocky Mountain News said in its on January 3rd headline, “Peter Dominick left imprint on nation … ‘one of the best.’” [www.rockymountainnews.com].

Details and contact information follow

History:
Peter Hoyt Dominick, Jr. was born in New York on June 9, 1941 and raised from the age of five in Colorado.  He lived in Denver and on his ranch in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near the town of Red Wing in southern Colorado.

He was the oldest of the four children of Nancy Parks and Peter H. Dominick, who served two terms in the US Senate from Colorado and was appointed Ambassador to Switzerland in 1975 by President Gerald R. Ford.

Following his father’s educational trail, Mr. Dominick attended St. Mark’s School in Framingham, Massachusetts for four years and continued on to graduate from Yale University with a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies in 1963.  He pointed to his studies with legendary architecture professor and historian Vincent Scully as the first major influence on his decision to become an architect.  His professional training took place at the University of Pennsylvania, studying with another design legend, Louis Kahn.  He received his Master of Architecture degree in 1966.

After working his way around the world, he returned to Denver and joined William Muchow & Associates as a designer in 1973.  In 1974 he founded Dominick Architects in Denver’s lower downtown district, at that point a faded warehousing section.  Rolling up his advocacy sleeves, he and some friends formed the Wazee Three and subsequently the Wazee Design & Development Company, a partnership that became a force in the “LoDo’s” reconceptualization, planning, and renaissance.

The next step in 1989 was to merge his firm with Urban Design Group.  He became Director of Design and head of the Denver studio. That office and others in Dallas, Chicago, Tulsa, and Atlanta grew or were formed.  UDG’s extensive portfolio became the basis of an eponymous book published in Images Publishing Company’s Master Architect Series about the firm’s “commitment to stewardship and enrichment of the built and natural environments and everyday life.” Thomas Beeby and Robert A.M. Stern wrote forewords.

By the time that monograph appeared in 2003, Mr. Dominick and his colleagues Randy Johnson and Tom Brauer had left UDG and formed 4240 Architecture in Chicago and Denver, where Mr. Dominick was located.  [The name represents the geographic latitudes of both offices, “to imply a site-specific but global practice,” Mr. Dominick wrote.]

Design philosophy
“To Peter, regionalism was a universal concept available everywhere – enabling the firm to create places and spaces that harmonize with their particular site, community, use, and culture,” Randy Johnson explains.  Citing the work done in Denver, notably in LoDo and the recent pioneering move to the RiNo [River North] section into a former foundry-warehouse that has just been honored with “Gold” status by the US Green Building Council, he said that, “Although much of Peter’s work entailed new structures, he focused equally on preservation, renovation, infill, and revitalization – a bona fide champion of the value in existing structures and urban fabric.”

Honors
A frequent speaker, occasional writer, and knowledgeable collector of contemporary art, Mr. Dominick was invited onto the Denver Art Museum Board of Directors; the University of Colorado, School of Architecture Dean’s Advisory Committee; the National Advisory Board of the Whitney Museum of American Art [New York City]; and the Yale University School of Architecture’s Dean’s Council [the dean being his old friend, Robert A.M. Stern].

In 1994, he was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, the profession’s highest honor, for excellence in architectural design.  The Digest of Achievements cites his “abiding sense of responsibility to the culture of the West” and “extraordinary ability to articulate artistic ideas.”

Engagement
Active in civic affairs, Mr. Dominick served in Denver on the Mayor’s Council of the Arts, the Denver Partnership Civic Ventures Board, the Episcopal Diocese Art and Architecture Board, and the Colorado Wildlife Heritage Foundation Board of Directors.  He also was a member of the Urban Land Institute and had been appointed to the US General Services Administration’s National Register of Peer Professionals, an advisory group.

Personal background
Peter Dominick was both an urbanite and lover of outdoor life – an expert horseman, skier, and fly fisherman who traveled widely to fish for salmon and trout in the great rivers of the world.  One friend wrote that “[Peter’s] life resembled a perfectly cast fly line, unfurling with grace, delivered with purpose.”

Mr. Dominick is survived by Philae Carver Dominick, his wife of 30 years; two grown children; his mother; and two brothers and a sister.

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