Architect Gina Pollara Named President of Municipal Art Society

New York, N.Y.  Gina Pollara, architect, author, and urban designer, has been appointed President of The Municipal Art Society (MAS), effective immediately, it was announced today by Frederick Iseman, Chairman of the MAS Board of Directors.

“We are deeply pleased to name Gina Pollara our next President after a long and thorough hunt for a suitable leader,” said Iseman. “She is dynamic, our issues run through her veins, she is respected throughout the city as a doer, an entrepreneur, and as a force for the improvement of civic life. She is also known for being effective, exigent, hell-bent on results and a lot of fun to work with. I look forward to working with her on the many challenges that all five boroughs of this city face. She will be a fiery spark-plug working with the capable members of our board.”

“I’m profoundly honored to join The Municipal Art Society, an organization that continues to be one of the most important civic voices in the city that advocates for design and planning excellence. I am particularly excited to be leading MAS as it prepares to celebrate its 125th anniversary in 2018,” Pollara said. “I look forward to working with our current partners and to developing new alliances as MAS continues to advance so many of the issues that are vital to the city’s future.”

As executive director of Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park, LLC, Pollara oversaw construction of the memorial to President Franklin D. Roosevelt designed by the architect Louis Kahn for the southern tip of Roosevelt Island in the East River. The project, now called Four Freedoms Park, was completed in October 2012. It occupied Louis Kahn at the time of his death in 1974, and the project lay dormant for decades.

An exhibit Pollara co-curated at The Cooper Union on this design was instrumental in the successful civic effort to revive the project which involved many partners including Ambassador William J. vanden Heuvel.

More recently, she has been working with the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council and a large group of stakeholders on the South Street Initiative, an effort to create an entity to steward the development of the lower East River waterfront. She has also provided strategic planning and fundraising services to The River Project and the Hudson River Foundation for an estuarium to be built on Pier 26 in the Hudson River Park. Additionally, she was the New York City/East Coast representative for the Vancouver, Canada-based firm, Bing Thom Architects.

Before serving as executive director of Four Freedoms Park, she was associate director at The Cooper Union Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, the exhibition and publication arm of the school. Prior to that, she spent many years as an architecture consultant and construction manager for various companies and projects in New York City, California and Florida.

Pollara serves on the boards of the Four Freedoms Park Conservancy and the New York Preservation Archive Project, and is on the advisory board of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire Memorial. She has lectured widely and has been published on topics ranging from the Roosevelt Memorial to New York City’s water system.

She is a graduate of Bennington College and The Cooper Union Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.

About The Municipal Art Society of New York

Founded in 1893, The Municipal Art Society is five years older than the consolidated City of New York itself. For over 120 years, MAS has worked to inspire, educate, and empower New Yorkers to engage in the betterment of our city. Through three core campaign areas, MAS protects New York’s legacy spaces, encourages intentional planning and urban development, and fosters complete neighborhoods across the five boroughs.

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