Ralph Walker, FAIA

Year Awarded: 1957


Projects
• 1949: Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J.
• 1939: several buildings for the 1939 New York World’s Fair
• 1931: Irving Trust Building, New York City
• 1929: Western Union Building, New York City
• 1926: Barclay-Vesey Building, New York City


Biography
Following three years working as an apprentice, Ralph Walker enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying there fro 1909 to 1911. He worked for several years at architecture firms in different parts of the country. In 1916, he won the Rotch Traveling Scholarship.

He settled in New York in 1919 and joined the firm McKenzie, Voorhees, and Gmelin. In 1923, when the firm won the New York Telephone Company commission, the firm gave the project to Walker. Now known as the Barclay-Vesey Building, the project was so successful that in 1926 Walker became a partner and the firm’s name became Voorhees, Gmelin, and Walker and later Voorhees, Walker, Foley & Smith (in 1939). Walker’s design of the Art Deco–styled building began his reputation as a highly respected builder of skyscrapers that included the Western Union Building and the Irving Trust Building.

Walker served as president of the AIA from 1949 to 1951.