ROUSSEAU, Joseph Joachim Albert (1884-1931), a talented Canadian-born architect and educator who moved to the United States in 1915 and spent the duration of his career as an architect and professor of architecture at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Born in Quebec City in 1884 he was educated there and articled with a local architect in that city from 1903 to 1908. His may have practised under his own name there; his name as architect appears in local directories from 1909 to 1911 (Quebec & Levis Directory, 1909-10, 698). By 1912 he had moved to Paris, France to study at the Ecole-des-Beaux-Arts.
His formal training in the French tradition may have played a role in the invitation offered to him in 1915 by the University of Michigan to join the faculty there, where he later became an influential Professor of Design. He was also an adept and talented designer and delineator; his striking proposal for the Chicago Tribune Tower submitted in the 1922 competition received an Honorable Mention, and his exquisite drawings for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre ion England (1927) were praised by the jury both for their conception and their presentation. Shortly before his death he was collaborating with his brother E. Georges Rousseau on a memorial church to Jacques Cartier, located on the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec. He died suddenly in Ann Arbor on 18 April 1931 (obit. and port. Detroit Free Press, 20 April 1931, 4; obit. Michigan Alumnus, xxxvii, 9 May 1931, 548; biog. H. Withey, Biographical Dictionary of American Architects, 1956, 530; inf. Nancy Bartlett, Univ. of Michigan Archives)</ br>
ANN ARBOR, MICH., Masonic Temple, 1922; demol. 1975
ANN ARBOR, MICH, St. Mary's Roman Catholic Chapel, 1923
ANN ARBOR, MICH., office building for the Abstract Co. Ltd., 1924
COMPETITIONS
CHICAGO, ILL., Tribune Tower Competition, 1922. Rousseau was one of 167 entrants from around the world who submitted designs for this significant commission, and his proposal for a dramatic stepped skyscraper received an Honourable Mention (The International Competition for a New Administration Building for the Chicago Tribune, 1923, plate 35, illus.). The First Premium was awarded to the New York firm of Hood & Howells.
STRATFORD-ON-AVON, ENGLAND, Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, 1927. Rousseau prepared a remarkably sophisticated design combining French and American influences, and his scheme was commended as being 'the most formal of all the designs' (Architect & Building News [London], cxix, 6 January 1928, 18-19, 22-4, illus. & descrip.; R.A.I.C. Journal, v, March 1928, 81, illus.). The winner was a young English architect Elizabeth Scott.
CHICAGO WAR MEMORIAL, Chicago, Ill., 1930