Member Spotlight: Mark Wright, AIA, Principal, Wright & Robinson Architects
BIO
Mark Wright was educated at Rice University (BA ’80, B. Arch ’82). He began his professional life with R. M. Kliment & Frances Halsband Architects, where from 1982 to 1992 he was central to the development of many of the firm’s widely published award-winning projects, with a special focus on houses. In 1992 he joined Robert Lamb Hart Planners & Architects. With these firms he collaborated on civic and academic buildings, office interiors and Manhattan coop apartments, clubhouses for golf- country- and yacht- clubs, and houses of every size in sensitive historic, urban, suburban, mountain, island, and beach resort locations.
In 2002 Mr. Wright joined Karin Robinson to establish their award-winning firm Wright & Robinson Architects. Their work includes new construction and numerous additions in Historic Districts, with built work as far-flung as Baltimore MD, Redding CT, and Hudson NY. Closer to home, the partners work most often in Montclair, South Orange, and Ridgewood NJ as well as Manhattan and Brooklyn..
With H. H. Richardson’s House for Reverend Browne, Rediscovered (Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, JSAH, Mar 2009 p74-99) Mr. Wright presented his reconstruction of one of the most consequential—yet enigmatic—works of 19th century American domestic architecture. In 2017 Mr. Wright delivered his lecture H. H. Richardson’s Ames Monument as Architecture as the closing speaker of the symposium in Laramie WY at the inauguration of the Ames Monument as a National Historic Landmark. He offers more informal talks on architectural and historical topics to historical societies and civic groups.
Mr. Wright was honored with a MacDowell artists’ colony residential fellowship in 2010.
Mark Wright, AIA, is licensed in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and New Hampshire.
For business inquiries: [email protected] | 973-566-0449 | https://wright-robinson-architects.com/
Q&A
What was your favorite recent project?
Among our recent projects are several that have been especially satisfying. To cite just one, we are just now completing the renovation of and an addition to the service wing of the historic Harry Fenn house of 1885. Artist Fenn was a world traveler, and in its day the house that architect M. Edwards-Ficken created with him was considered exceptional—and exceptionally exotic. We have been working on various aspects of the building for many years. Notably, we restored its front porch for former owners. That work was recognized with a Montclair Bricks & Mortar Preservation Award, and with a Gold design award by the AIA Newark & Suburban chapter. The current project modified the circulation into, through, up, down, and around its service wing to solve the house for the 21st century without resorting to an alien open plan.
How long did it take before you felt comfortable in your role as an architect?
I felt comfortable as an architect right out of the box. My first summer internship was with the Houston office of SOM. Two of us were brought in by one of our studio professors, William F Stern, to help on a project for a high-rise hotel he was developing with the senior partner Richard Keating. It was an unusual building for the firm at the time, and I helped shape it by resolving its roof and end elevations in a way Rick immediately enjoyed. I still like the building and am proud to have helped find its form. The lesson for students of architecture is to step up and step forward, even if your official role is appropriately a small one. Look always at the whole project, not just at the narrow task set before you on a given afternoon.
What would be your dream job or a project you'd like to work on?
The commission I most crave would be for a cabin on a trout stream in the Catskills.
What do you like to do when you are not working?
My extracurriculars involve field and archival research into—and the reconstruction of and writing about—lost little buildings by great architects. These have included houses by Henry Hobson Richardson, Robert Venturi, and Charles Follen McKim. Next up on this roster is a house by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s partner John Charles Olmsted.
What are 3 facts about you that make you unique?
Three things that make me unique? I was taught to use cutting tools by my grandfather, and that altered the way I ‘see’ with my hands. I still build little chipboard models. And I love the personal, craft-intensive, hands-on site work that treating a historic house with respect demands of an architect.
Who or what are your inspirations for architecture?
I am inspired by the architects to whom I apprenticed myself either actually or in spirit. Robert Kliment and Frances Halsband come first. Richardson, McKim, and Venturi are a second group. Jones, Wren, and Hawksmoor come third, at much greater distance
Who or what are your inspirations for life?
Lessons are everywhere in the sunshine and shadow, and in the pages of books one comes to love. Read Moby Dick three or four times and you are bound to get beyond the Pequod as a toxic work environment.
What’s exciting about what you are doing now in the office?
I am excited by the prospect this fall of designing a substantial house addition with an indoor pool, and to have recently found again an old box of 64 Crayola crayons. They still smell wonderful, and this next project just might be colorful in the manner of Moonraker Rec Center at The Sea Ranch.
What advice would you give to recent graduates entering the professional world?
Advice to recent grads? Aim high—even in the context of taking that unglamorous job you need—by sheltering and nourishing your own informed architectural enthusiasms. Take a small tape with you, everywhere you go, and measure things that you like.
Projects
Glen Ridge Community Pool House complex (2015). New buildings in the Historic District. AIA Newark & Suburban Silver Design Award. Photo c. 2015 by Wright & Robinson Architects
New porch and home office in the Glen Ridge Historic District (2019). Photo c. 2019 by Erik Rank
Addition and Renovation/Restoration in the Glen Ridge Historic District (2011). Featured by Mark Alan Hewitt FAIA and Gordon Bock as a case study in their book The Vintage House: A Guide to Successful Renovations and Additions. Photo c. 2019 by Wright & Robinson Architects
Restoration of partially destroyed Scamozzi Ionic porch in the Glen Ridge Historic District (2018) AIA Newark & Suburban Gold Design Award. Photograph c. 2019 by Wright & Robinson Architects
Renovation of a Dutch Colonial house in Maplewood (2023). The new kitchen is designed for entertaining. Photo c. 2023 by Wright & Robinson Architects
