Marc Charles Kushner (born September 27, 1977) is an American architect, entrepreneur and author. He was a partner at the New York City based architecture firm Hollwich Kushner and co-founded Architizer.

Early life and education

The son of Lee Kushner and step-son of real estate developer Murray Kushner, Marc Kushner was raised Modern Orthodox Jewish in

Livingston, New Jersey Livingston is a township (New Jersey), township in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's population was 31,330, its highest United States census, decennial co ...

. Kushner graduated from The Frisch School before attending the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

where he received a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Political Science and Contemporary Vernacular Architecture as Cultural Artifact. Kushner then attended

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urba ...

and received a Master of Architecture.New York Times: "A Kushner Goes From Scion to 'Service Provider'" by Alex Williams
November 3, 2010

Business career

Architecture

After working for multiple architecture firms including

Steven Holl Steven Holl (born December 9, 1947) is a New York–based American architect and watercolorist. His work includes the 2022 Rubenstein Commons at the Institute for Advanced Study; the 2020 Campus expansion of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston inc ...

, Jürgen Mayer H. and Lewis Tsurumaki Lewis, Kushner formed the architecture firm Hollwich Kushner in 2007 with Matthias Hollwich whom he had met in Jürgen Mayer's Berlin kitchen five years prior. In 2012 Marc Kushner and Matthias Hollwich won MoMA PS1's Young Architects Program with their project Wendy. Following the success of Wendy, Hollwich and Kushner received multiple commissions including the Fire Island Pines Pavilion (2013), the

’s LEED Gold Pennovation Center (2016), Journal Squared (2017), and the speculative innovation campu
25 Kent
(2018). In 2017, the firm was included in Fast Company's ranking of the World's Most Innovative companies. Marc has spoken on the state of architecture at events such as TED and

PSFK PSFK is an American media company located in New York, New York. The company follows and reports on trends. History PSFK examines trends in major corporations. The company does innovation research for corporate clients to determine trends and co ...

. In 2019 Marc Kushner left Hollwich Kushner.

Architizer

During the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

, Marc Kushner and his business partner Matthias Hollwich created a digital platform to help architects promote their firms’ work. Architizer rapidly grew to become the largest platform for architecture online. To increase visibility of global architecture Kushner incepted the A+ Awards in 2013. They have grown to become the largest global architecture awards program.

''The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings''

In 2014 Kushner was invited to speak at the 30th anniversary of TED in Vancouver. There he reviewed the last 30 years of architectural history and expounded on how social media was changing the direction of the way buildings are designed. The TED talk was followed in 2015 with Marc Kushner's first book, published by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster LLC (, ) is an American publishing house owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts since 2023. It was founded in New York City in 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group US ...

and TED Books - ''The Future of Architecture in 100 Buildings''.

Personal life

Kushner married Christopher Barley, also an architect, in a Jewish ceremony on March 31, 2012. He is openly gay. Kushner's step-brother Jonathan Kushner is a real estate developer and president of their family's real estate organization, Kushner Real Estate Group. Marc is a first cousin of former presidential advisor

Jared Kushner Jared Corey Kushner (born January 10, 1981) is an American businessman and investor. He is a son-in-law of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, through his marriage to Ivanka Trump and served as a senior advisor in his father-in- ...

(son-in-law of

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

), and

Joshua Kushner Joshua Kushner (born June 12, 1985) is an American businessman and investor. He is the founder and managing partner of the venture capital firm Thrive Capital, co-founder and vice-chairman of Oscar Health, and the youngest son of the real estate ...

, managing partner of

Thrive Capital Thrive Capital Management, LLC, commonly Thrive Capital, is an American venture capital firm based in New York City. It focuses on software and internet investments. The firm was founded by Joshua Kushner who is also co-founder of Oscar Health ...

, a New York-based private equity firm. Kushner also serves as president of the Board of Friends of Plus Pool, a nonprofit behind the development of a water-filtering, floating swimming pool that will filter and clean urban rivers.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kushner, Marc 21st-century American architects Living people 1977 births Jewish architects Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni

Marc Marc or MARC may refer to: People * Marc (given name), people with the first name * Marc (surname), people with the family name Acronyms * MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging, * MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system ...

University of Pennsylvania alumni LGBTQ people from New York (state) LGBTQ architects Gay Jews People from Livingston, New Jersey LGBTQ people from New Jersey American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent American chief executives