Features
The 25 – Gregory Matthew Hoss
The president of the Washington, D.C.-based architectural planning and design firm David M. Schwarz Architects, Gregory Matthew Hoss has designed significant civic, performing arts, and sports projects across the country that are architecturally distinctive.
Hoss’s designs include Sundance Square, The Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas, and the American Airlines Center in Dallas. He also oversaw conceptual design of the conversion of part of the first floor of the White House into a visitor’s center, and the renovation of the concert hall at The Kennedy Center.
His projects, which source precedents from near and far and fuse ideas, illustrate how architecture can promote cultural identity, how places can be iconic and yet comfortable, and the emotional influence that buildings have on the popular memory.
Hoss traces his love of architecture to growing up in a struggling Midwestern city. “Sometime during high school, I decided that I wanted to reimagine cities as places where people could thrive,” he says. “My education and career have focused on redefining struggling communities.”
After earning a dual degree in architecture and civil engineering from The Catholic University of America, where he’s an adjunct professor teaching traditional design studios to fourth- and fifth-year students, Hoss had an internship at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Perkins & Will. He joined David M. Schwarz Architects in 1997 after working for HNTB.
He sees architects as playing a key role in addressing many of the world’s critical challenges, including climate change, social equity, and economic disparity.
“At the same time,” he says, “architectural practice must adapt to the generational demands of our post Gen-X emerging architects in order to remain viable.”
He notes that to that end, David M. Schwarz Architects has, for the last five years, been developing leaders in the firm who have the training, people skills, and experience to effectively grapple with the complex technical, cultural, and socio-economic commitments in future projects.
In terms of his own work, Hoss says his “goal is to create places that communities embrace as their own—once they do this, the impact of our design is multiplied exponentially.”
He adds that “being an architect is a study in practice, patience, and perseverance. Having great clients, partners, and colleagues makes it all worthwhile. Of course, hearing Joshua Bell, Carole King, and Jennifer Hudson perform at the opening of the Smith Center, a performing-arts center we designed in Las Vegas, is pretty good, too.”
