Dale Laurin graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree (1973) from Carnegie-Mellon University, where he was awarded the Alpha Rho Chi medal for leadership and service. Concurrent with his early study of Aesthetic Realism, he earned a Master of Science in Historic Preservation (1977) from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, where he studied with the program’s founder, the noted architectural historian and preservationist, James Marston Fitch. While at Columbia, he worked for the Historic American Buildings Survey, documenting three landmark buildings at Sailors’ Snug Harbor in Staten Island, NY.

As a registered architect in New York state, Mr. Laurin worked over 25 years in various capacities—as designer, planner, and project manager for The Eggers Group, one of New York’s oldest firms (architects for The National Gallery, U.S. Treasury Building, and the Jefferson Memorial), and for its successor firm, Hillier Architects and Planners. He was part of the design team for the award-winning Cogeneration Facility at JFK International Airport, and his entry won a competition for the design of Valle Arriba Athletic Club in Caracas, Venezuela. He has been a speaker at several national and regional conferences of the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association (NIRSA), in Louisville, Salt Lake City, and Philadelphia, speaking on aspects of sports facility design. His design for the National World War II Memorial—inspired by what he learned about the meaning of the war from Aesthetic Realism—was featured in exhibitions at the Terrain Gallery and Mellon Auditorium in Washington, DC.

Along with his work as an Aesthetic Realism consultant, Mr. Laurin is an architect in the architecture/engineering division of the New York City Department of Design and Construction, reviewing a wide range of public projects from libraries to courthouses as part of the city's Excellence in Design initiative.

In 2004, among the projects he completed as an associate of Urbane Architects, were a master plan study for Columbia University’s School of Nursing, and row houses in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, for Habitat for Humanity NYC.

With his colleagues, consultant Ken Kimmelman, filmmaker, and associates Anthony Romeo, architect, and Barbara Buehler, NYC planner--who is Mr. Laurin’s wife--he has given the groundbreaking presentation, “Housing: a Basic Right, an Urgent Need, a National Priority—Aesthetic Realism Explains the Cause of America’s Housing Crisis and the Solution!” at national conferences of the American Institute of Architects in Philadelphia, the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness at the University of Maryland, the Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL) at Harvard, and most recently at the New York Anti-Hunger League at New York University.

"Housing for All" in Architectural Record 

Design for World Trade Center Site Memorial
(Go to Exhibition section, search for Laurin, click to enlarge.)