Elizabeth Harrison Kubany
“…seek meaning: in your choice of career and then every day thereafter in the projects you work on, the people you associate with, and the clients you work for.”
#WomenWhoBuild meet Elizabeth Harrison Kubany,
Elizabeth is a Principal at KUBANY, LLC, a Public Relations & Communications firm she founded in 2002. Throughout her career Elizabeth has worked with a variety of clients, including architecture, real estate, and design firms, which all share a common belief in the power of the built and designed environment to improve the world. Her company has worked on the restoration and expansion of the Rothko Chapel, the launch of 7 World Trade Center on behalf of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and the launch of the non-profit -Exhibit Columbus. Prior to starting her own company Elizabeth was a Director of Public Relations at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and an Editor at Architectural Record.
ArchNative sat down with Elizabeth (virtually of course) to discuss her introduction to Architecture & Design, how motherhood gave her the push to start her own company, how she approaches each project, and of course her advice for women entering the field.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your initial introduction to Architecture and Design?
Design and architecture have always been a part of my life. The practice is in my blood. My grandparents were pioneers in the American furniture industry; they started a company called Furniture Specialties that designed and manufactured upholstered furniture in New York City. One uncle is an architect who designed a modern house in the woods on Long Island for his family where we spent holidays, and my other uncle and aunt were art collectors who took a very early interest in American art and outsider art before there was a big market for them. And the house I grew up in was just always kind of cool and distinctive with a mix of midcentury modern and antique furniture and lots of books and art. This was in Summit, NJ in the 1970s where most everyone had chintz drapes and lobsters embroidered on their pants. I grew up in a family of people with great eyes for design, very original taste, and an entrepreneurial spirit. As a kid, I didn’t appreciate it because I always felt so different from my peers and neighbors. Now I recognize how formative this was for me.
Elizabeth in Mexico City, which she visited with the board of Open House New York
What made you decide to pursue Architecture and Design PR as your chosen career path?
PR really chose me, not the other way around. I set out to be an architect. I studied architecture at Columbia as an undergraduate, but really couldn’t draw well enough to fully explain my ideas. While I was getting frustrated in the studio, I found I could express myself very well in writing. After spending a semester in Rome and becoming obsessed with Borromini and the Italian Baroque, I decided to change my major to architectural history. I then got my Masters in Architectural History and Theory from the Architectural Association in London.
I didn’t really have a clear sense of what I wanted to do with this degree. One of my professors in graduate school suggested that I should edit and write books on architecture, so I tried to get a job at Princeton Architectural Press and Rizzoli. But no one was hiring in the recession of the early 1990s, so I took a job at a small travel PR agency just so I could support myself. I am not exaggerating when I say that I had absolutely no idea what PR was when I started in that job.
I had always worked through college but this was my first ‘real’ job and I drank it up. I was capable so my boss gave me tons of responsibility – from billing to writing press releases to interacting with clients. After two years, I answered an ad in The New York Times for a PR position in an architecture firm. That firm was Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates and I ended up as the Director of PR there at the tender age of 25. Working with Hugh and Malcolm was an education every day and in every way. With them I opened the New Victory and New Amsterdam Theaters on 42nd Street, the Rainbow Room, projects at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Bryant Park, and Windows on the World. It was a really transformational moment in New York City and a pivotal experience in my career. And I realized that I could combine my love of architecture and design with my experience in PR.
I took a break from PR to be an editor at Architectural Record for a few years in the late 1990s, but went back to it when Skidmore, Owings & Merrill hired me as the firmwide Director of Public Relations.
“Work is, and always has been, incredibly important to me.”
Can you tell us a little bit about starting Kubany LLC? What made you decide to start your company?
I think the simplest answer to this question is this: Work is, and always has been, incredibly important to me. When my second child was born, I knew I wanted to keep working, but I also knew that I needed to be able to do it on my own terms. I had a number of journalist friends who had made introductions to potential clients, so I just sensed that I would be able to make a go of it. And SOM offered me a consulting position when my daughter was born. I still work with SOM 18 years later and have a relationship with the firm that I treasure.
Starting this company was equal parts a result of my entrepreneurial drive and my desire – as a young working mother – to chart my own course. And the benefit has been that starting a firm has allowed me to work with a wide range of clients and pro bono projects – product designers, architecture firms, landscape architects, arts institutions, cultural nonprofits, and individual artists – which makes the work endlessly interesting.
What does a typical work week look like for you?
Probably my favorite thing about this job is that there is no typical work week. The work is so varied all the time. I spent last week organizing tours of the new Moynihan Station Train Hall, pitching the National Museum of the U.S. Army, auditing a client’s social media channels, creating a plan for a new furniture line, and working with a non-profit board to create a communications plan to support a capital campaign.
I can tell you that I work very long hours, and I work almost every day. But, for me, it doesn’t really feel like “work” – it just feels like what I do. And I still make sure to make time for the people, activities, and hobbies that matter to me – my family and friends, fitness, being in nature, reading, cooking, playing chess (a new pandemic skill!) and serving on the boards of Open House New York and Isaiah House, a homeless shelter in East Orange, NJ.
Photos Above: Elizabeth hiking with her family in Argentina (December 2019)/Elizabeth in Rwanda (Summer 2019)
How do you approach each project you work on?
I believe that architecture and design are universally relevant. They affect all people, all the time; design makes us think, feel and do things, for better or worse. I don’t see design as being even remotely frivolous or “first world.” The notion that architecture and design are only for the wealthy is something that I reject. In my view, this misunderstanding of architecture, the failure to appreciate that design has a social and human value is a huge problem in our culture. The result of this disconnect is that huge swaths of the population lacks access to beauty or feels these disciplines don’t apply to them.
In the broadest terms, I see my work as that of a translator – taking complex, multi-layered, often technical stories, and making them interesting and relevant to the broadest audience possible. So, thinking about how to tell these stories in the most essential and understandable way for a variety of audiences is the starting point.
I’m always interested in the ways in which any project goes beyond its brief. That has been one thing that has really come out of 2020 for me – the clarity that if something isn’t actively solving problems, then it is contributing to the problem. This also assumes that the projects I work on always have a deeper meaning beyond aesthetics. I say no to any project that is about form for its own sake and I hope we are at a point in the arc of history where we recognize, as a culture, that the time has passed for buildings that do little more than express something new formally.
I’ve promoted dozens and dozens of buildings in my career and I know that what sells in a magazine is precisely the opposite of what I’m advocating here. The iconic structure, the fanciful form – that is what gets the most attention in the press. I have spent many years of my life trying to work towards a nuanced understanding and appreciation – for myself and the public – of projects that are more subtle, more complex and ultimately more enduring.
What has been your favorite project to work on?
It is the projects that have impact, meaning and depth that I really love working on. There are some obvious ones, like the new Moynihan Train Hall in New York City, which is (in my opinion) the most consequential public project of my lifetime; it speaks to the kind of city we want New York to be, and the kind of citizens we need to be to deserve public buildings like this. There is a new furniture line that re-asserts the possibility of American craftsmanship and manufacturing, or Memorial Park, which unearths important historical and cultural narratives and offers access to nature to thousands of Houstonians. If I really have to choose though, I’d select two non-profits that I’ve been working for, the Rothko Chapel and Exhibit Columbus.
The Rothko Chapel just reopened a few months ago after undergoing a comprehensive restoration and campus expansion. Of course, the Chapel is an icon as a place of solace and as the home to 14 monumental canvases by Mark Rothko. But it is also an organization that has been on vanguard of social, religious, racial, economic and environmental justice since it was founded. I’ve loved telling this story as much as I’ve loved talking about the architecture and art.
Exhibit Columbus is an organization that was founded to reassert the importance of the design legacy of Columbus, Indiana—a small Midwestern city with more than 80 major works for modern architecture, design, art and landscape. Columbus has always inspired me as a place built on the conviction that architecture and design matter—that great buildings can improve our lives, strengthen community, and instill a sense of civic purpose and pride. Working with Exhibit Columbus has allowed me to explore how these ideas play out today—the ways in which architecture, design and art can impact an entire city, its community and its economy.
What is one piece of advice you have for women looking to begin working in the field?
Three things:
First, always keep your ears, mind and heart open to learning new things. Don’t worry if you don’t find a single mentor. Your education never ends and lessons can come from anywhere and anyone, in any form.
And second, seek meaning - in your choice of career and then every day thereafter in the projects you work on, the people you associate with, and the clients you work for. Let that meaning guide you to do the best work possible.
And finally, separate yourself by having exceptionally high standards, by writing and communicating with care and expertise, by being willing to go above and beyond, and by caring deeply about your clients and their success.