K.J. Kossak Collection

Krzysztof J. Kossak was born in Krakow, Poland in 1922. He graduated from high school at the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and fled with his father from war-torn Poland to Czechoslovakia. Kossak enlisted with the Allied Forces in Palestine and served with the British Army and the British Royal Air Force in North Africa.

In recognition of his wartime service, Kossak was awarded a full university scholarship and earned a degree in architecture from Manchester University in England, graduating in 1951. He then worked in London for Fry, Drew, Drake, & Lasdun, a leading architectural, town planning, and industrial design firm. In 1954 he was appointed architect to the Terna Development Corporation in Gold Coast, British West Africa, for the purpose of planning and developing the new town of Terna. Upon completing his duties he moved to Toronto and was a staff architect in the office of Marani, Morris, & Allan.

Kossak came to the United States in 1960 and for eight years worked with the architectural firm Harrison & Abramovitz in New York. In 1968 he joined the New York office of noted architect Philip Johnson and became an associate. Early in 1973 he opened an office for Johnson's firm in Houston, Texas and one year later started his own practice. He retired to Scottsdale, Arizona and died in 2008, survived by his wife, Valerie, five children, and three grandchildren.