Gerald Lee Morosco is an architect, author, and lecturer of national reputation. He is the founder and President of Gerald Lee Morosco Architects, P. C., a preservation-based architectural firm based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Morosco was graduated with Honors from Washington & Jefferson College in 1981with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Art and English, after which he pursued his education as an Architect by way of traditional apprenticeship at Taliesin. From 1981-1986 at Wright's landmark estates at Taliesin near Spring Green, Wisconsin and at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona, Morosco lived and worked in fellowship with many who had lived and worked directly with Frank Lloyd Wright. While at Taliesin, Morosco gained practical “hands-on” experience in both the art and practice of architecture and in construction, culminating with the design and actual construction of the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives facility at Taliesin West in 1985.
Morosco relocated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1986 to pursue his interest in historic preservation, establishing his architectural practice there in 1989. He has become nationally recognized for the craft and beauty of his award-winning custom residential designs, his work on historic structures, and for his work in the preservation-based revitalization of urban neighborhoods and downtown business districts.
In 1994 the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation recognized Morosco with an Award of Merit for his "outstanding achievements in historic preservation and for increasing public knowledge of our heritage through restoration and rehabilitation of the East Carson Street National Register District." That district presents a striking portfolio of his firm's historic rehabilitation work, with over three-dozen projects to their credit. In part through his service with the South Side Local Development Company, “Main Street on East Carson Street” became one of only five such districts nationwide to receive the Great American Main Street Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1996. Three years later, in recognition of this project and his other work with the Pennsylvania Downtown Center; he became the youngest individual nominated for the Otto Haas Award, Pennsylvania’s highest preservation honor.
At the 1999 Pittsburgh Home & Garden Show, Morosco created a full-scale model of a typical apartment unit from Frank Lloyd Wright’s unrealized 1953 design for Edgar J. Kaufmann: Point View Towers. The model’s brief ten-day venue stirred international attention and was visited by some 350,000 persons. The project was recognized in January 2000 with the coveted Pittsburgh Master Builders Award for Excellence in Craftsmanship. Designing a subsequent series of exhibitions and events related to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin legacy, he also received a second Award of Merit from Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation “for raising awareness of Pittsburgh’s architectural heritage through ‘Living Architecture… Alive in Pittsburgh’.”
His firm’s projects have been featured in numerous design periodicals including: Décor & Style, Metropolitan Home, Inspired House, Commercial Renovation, Pittsburgh Magazine, Primo Magazine, Old House Journal, Old House Interiors, Style 1900, Arts & Crafts Homes: the Revival, and various AIA chapter magazines, nationally syndicated newspapers, as well as on the Home & Garden Television Network.
In 2005 Morosco was one of four Pennsylvania architects nominated by Preservation Pennsylvania to This Old House Magazine’s 1st annual Hall of Fame list of America’s top twenty residential architects. A frequent presenter at The New York Times Designer Speaker Series on the stage of the Architectural Digest Home Show in New York City, his custom residential work was selected for inclusion in the book: Dream Homes of Ohio & Pennsylvania.
Now in the third printing, his first book: How to Work with an Architect, published by Gibbs Smith in 2006, has received critical acclaim and was named to Library Journals’ list of BEST BOOKS 2006. His second book, Reinventing the RowhouseSM is forthcoming.
Morosco serves as a founding member of the East Carson Street Historic District Local Review Committee, advisory to the City of Pittsburgh's Historic Review Commission, and on the Advisory Committee of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh. He is a charter member of the Jack Heinz Society of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and serves as a non-trustee member of the Heinz Hall Committee, advising on building and preservation issues. In December 2010, he was honored by his alma mater, Washington & Jefferson College with the prestigious Maurice Cleveland Waltersdorf Award for Innovative Leadership, for his “leadership in architecture and historic preservation as well as his lifetime of devotion to making Pittsburgh a vital and culturally rich city.”
Nationally, he is a former trustee of the Scottsdale, Arizona based Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, of which he served three years as chairman. He is a former board member and past-president of Taliesin Fellows, the alumni association of the Taliesin Fellowship and the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. A respected authority on the restoration and maintenance of historic structures related to Wright’s legacy, he has served on the Technical Services Committee of the Chicago based, Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings Conservancy. He served for nine years as a public trustee of the Wisconsin not-for-profit Taliesin Preservation, Inc.
Morosco makes his home in Pittsburgh’s Historic South Side together with his partner Paul Ford and their mixed-Border Collies, “Lincoln Dog” and “Mary Todd Dog.” Their award-winning rowhouse of his design received national recognition in 1999 as a finalist in Metropolitan Home of the Year Contest. Additionally the house received First Place in Pittsburgh Magazine’s 2000 Superior Interiors Competition, and an Award of Merit from the City of Pittsburgh Historic Review Commission. The home has been featured on the HGTV series: Houses Across America, and was featured extensively in the February 2010 issue of Old House Interiors.