Peter L. Gluck

In 1986 Gluck designed an addition to Uris Hall at Columbia University's School of Business. The original building, completed in 1964, was an eight-story glass and aluminum tower that had widely drawn sharp criticism since its inception. A 30,000 sf three-story addition designed by Gluck provided the building with a new entrance, classrooms, offices, a recruiting center plus student and faculty lounges and preserved something of the original McKim, Mead and White plan. The new facade brought Uris Hall into scale with the original plan and the use of limestone blended naturally with the Low Library directly in front of it.

During the years 1986-1989 Gluck designed the addition of guest quarters, an entertainment space and a pool to a Ludwig Mies van der Rohe house in Connecticut. The Morris Greenwald House was designed for the brother of Chicago real estate developer Herbert Greenwald who worked with Mies on many important apartment buildings. His design, while clearly in the manner of Mies, incorporates elements that are fresh as well as deferential. In trying to "out-Mies Mies" the project grew technically more challenging so that in the end Gluck took on the role of contractor himself. The influence of Japanese style is evident in Gluck's work, as he created systems of panels which are reminiscent of the movable walls in traditional Japanese architecture. Also, dropping the ceilings and raising the floors within the pavilions by several inches are also classic Japanese devices for defining space. In the end "Gluck succeeded in producing work in the manner of Mies that transcends an exercise in imitation or role playing. It succeeds by not being exactly Mies while always being about Mies, an absorbing gloss in steel and glass. It's exactly the deference the master deserves".

In the 1970s and 1980s Gluck designed projects of all types including the Marriott Casa Marina (Key West, Florida), Ojai Valley Inn (Ojai, California), Trancas Medical Center (Napa, California) work for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Technimetrics Inc., Lloyd's Bank International in New York, in addition to many private residences.

After graduation in 1965, Gluck purchased land in Vermont with the intention of building his own designs—a manifestation of the entrepreneurship that educator Denise Scott Brown has described as characteristic of Yale architecture students during the nineteen-sixties. Gluck purchased 100 acres (0.40 km) near Warren, Vermont, for which he designed vacation condominiums that were actually erected a few years later in a nearby town, Bolton.

Gluck received his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1962. He received his Masters in Architecture at the Yale School of Architecture studying under dean Paul Rudolph (architect), and noted architects James Stirling, Shadrach Woods and Henning Larsen. The influence of Louis Kahn who served as a design critic and professor of architecture at Yale School of Architecture from 1947 to 1957 was also still deeply felt. Toward the end of his program the Yale Building Project was initiated. A shift in the focus of learning to direct experience and away from the drafting room coincided with a design-build culture which already existed at Yale. "The design-build culture was largely initiated by two members of the class of 1965, David E. Sellers and Peter Gluck. In 1963, Sellers helped Gluck to build a vacation house for Gluck's parents in Westhampton, New York. A cedar-clad house which was supported on telephone poles took two summers to build and was featured in a 1967 article in Progressive Architecture which described the young Gluck as "plunging headlong into architecture--designing, building and developing."

Peter L. Gluck (born November 19, 1939) is principal of GLUCK+ (formerly Peter Gluck and Partners), an architecture firm based in New York City since 1972. A monograph of his work, The Modern Impulse, was published by ORO Editions in 2008. Gluck has designed buildings ranging from structures such as hotels, schools, university buildings and affordable housing to churches, homes, corporate interiors and historic restorations. Many of his projects regularly win national and international design awards and have been published in architectural journals and books in many countries. Gluck's sons are architect Thomas Gluck and director Will Gluck.