Norman Jaffe

Biography Norman Jaffe was born in 1932 in Chicago to poor immigrant parents from Poland and Latvia. During the period of the depression, he was sent to live with relatives in Seattle where he attended high school. After finishing school, he joined the military in 1954, serving with the United States Army Corps of Engineers in Japan during the Korean War.

In 1956, Jaffe finished his military service and returned to the United States. After receiving his degree, Jaffe began working for Esherick and in 1961, he left his wife and son and moved to New York to work for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, one of the largest architectural firms in the world, and later, for Philip Johnson.

Jaffe had begun visiting Long Island in the 1960s, and in 1973 he moved to Bridgehampton where he opened an architectural practice. He became the most prolific architect in the Hamptons at that time, designing more than 50 local houses, from small summer homes to large estates. His work in the Hamptons included a golf club, synagogue and restaurant. Jaffe's design won awards for contemporary religious design. and architecture historian Alastair Gordon said Jaffe's design for the Gates of the Grove "was the jewel in the crown of his turbulent career".

Jaffe was inducted as a fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1991; the Smithsonian Institution honored the occasion by exhibiting his work. Architecture critic Paul Goldberger from The New Yorker, described the building as "quite remarkable...a stunning modernist object (which) respects the street, and in so doing, it enriches the city."

Jaffe assisted a number of charities, including medical relief programs in East Africa and local charities on Long Island. He also donated his professional services to charities and completed a design for a children's hospital in Croatia. His clothes and other personal items were found unattended on the beach. He had only learned to swim in his 50s, and his friends and family were reported as saying he was an overconfident but poor swimmer. On September 24, 1993, he was buried at Shaare Pardes Accabonac Grove Cemetery, a Jewish cemetery. That comes out to one project every three weeks. His work was displayed in museums exhibitions around the United States and overseas, including at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

From July 24 to September 18, 2005, the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York, presented "Romantic Modernist: The Life and Work of Norman Jaffe, Architect", the first major exhibition examining Jaffe's life and work. The curator of the exhibition was architectural historian Alastair Gordon, who is also the author of the book, Romantic Modernist: The Life and Work of Norman Jaffe Architect 1932-1993. The exhibition included architectural sketches and models, plans, photographs, furniture and a short documentary film featuring Paul Goldberger, architecture critic from The New Yorker, and archive footage of Jaffe himself.