PHILADELPHIA – Renowned Ukrainian American architect Zenon “Zen” Mazurkevich passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, on October 26 in Philadelphia. He was 79.
His death at Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University Hospital came as a result of head trauma sustained in a fall on October 4.
Among many buildings Mr. Mazurkevich designed was St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church, dubbed by Architectural Digest as a “Chicago landmark in its own right.” The ultra-modern design composed of glass, concrete and steel includes a central gold-domed tower, representing Christ, surrounded by 12 glass towers, representing his disciples.
Three-quarters of the building’s exterior consists of curved windows. It was one of the largest bent glass projects in the U.S. at that time. Mr. Mazurkevich said he also chose “the humblest of building materials, concrete,” for the remainder of the church “because it has the touch of man.”
Mr. Mazurkevich’s other ecclesiastical architecture projects include St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church in Baltimore; the Basilian Monastery in Glen Cove, N.Y.; and the Prayer Room at St. Basil Academy in Fox Chase.
“Building is defying gravity,” he once noted. “I try to make what I design as light as possible. It seems to me that our buildings should be graceful, airy, a structural pirouette, and an inspiration to everyone who walks by.”
Born in Roznitiv, Ukraine, in 1939, Mr. Mazurkevich immigrated to Germany and then Canada. After graduating from the University of Toronto in 1965 with a bachelor’s degree in architecture, Mr. Mazurkevich moved to Chicago to work for modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.
Daria Iwanik
St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago.
Soon afterwards, Mr. Mazurkevich joined the architectural firm of Skidmore Owings & Merrill, where he worked on the designs of 500 North Michigan Ave., prominent on Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile;” the 100-story John Hancock Center in Chicago, the world’s second tallest skyscraper at the time; and the old Spectrum arena in Philadelphia.
“Architecture is a tremendous influence on people’s lives,” Mr. Mazurkevich once said. “It is principally a cultural statement, telling us where we are at a particular time. And the purpose of any art is to enrich people’s lives. In architecture you do that by expressing emotion and making something beautiful, not merely functional.”
In 1967, Mr. Mazurkevich moved to Philadelphia to attend graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, earning master’s degrees in architecture and city planning. After a period working in Detroit as chief architect for Ford, Mr. Mazurkevich returned to Philadelphia in 1973 to open his own firm.
His area projects included the Pine Run Retirement Community in Doylestown, the Ukrainian Self-Reliance Federal Credit Union in Philadelphia, and the Fairview Plaza Building in Jenkintown.
Throughout his life, Mr. Mazurkevich studied religious architecture, his enduring creative passion. “Church architecture is esthetically functional more than anything else,” he told the Chicago Tribune in an interview, “It probably is the last architecture… in which you can be exuberant.”
Mr. Mazurkevich is survived by his wife, human-rights activist and restaurateur Ulana Baluch Mazurkevich; older son, Marko, with wife Emmeline (Echon), grandchildren Luka and Mila; and younger son, Dorian, with wife Christina (Sawicky). He was predeceased by his sister Christina Bardyn, who is survived by her husband, Ihor, and their children.
The funeral service was held on November 10 at St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church. Entombment was at St. Nicholas Cemetery Mausoleum in Chicago.
St. Joseph the Betrothed Ukrainian Catholic Church has established a fund, in memory of Zenon Mazurkevich, for the completion and installation of a large religious mosaic by the late artist Marco Zubar, which had been designed for the church but never installed. In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate consideration of contributions to this fund.
Sources: Muzyka Funeral Home, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Sun-Times.