Rossen, Sanford, 1927-1984.

Southeastern Michigan area architect; 1951 graduate of the University of Michigan School of Architecture; Founder Sanford Rossen A.I.A. Architects in 1957, Rossen-Neumann Associates in 1968, and Sanford Rossen & Associates in 1981.

Michigan architect Sanford Rossen was born in Detroit in 1927 and died in 1984 at age 56. A graduate of Central High School, he served in the United States Navy before attending the University of Michigan's school of architecture. While earning a Bachelor of Architecture at Michigan, he was elected to membership in Tau Sigma Delta Architectural Honorary and received the American Institute of Architects' School Gold Medal, the highest award the architectural school bestows upon a student.

Upon graduation in 1951, Rossen worked for a number of Michigan architects as a project designer and project manager. In 1957, he founded Sanford Rossen A.I.A. Architects in Southfield, Michigan. Commissions included a variety of building types -- office structures, hotels, industrial buildings, banks, medical facilities, single and multi-family housing, theaters, race tracks, and commercial and office interiors. In 1964, the firm won a national design competition for the Elmwood Park Urban Redevelopment project in Detroit.

From 1968 to 1981, Rossen was in partnership with a former employee, Kenneth Neumann. Rossen-Neumann Associates consistently won awards for major projects, among them a national design competition for the Villa Site urban renewal area in Evansville, Indiana. The firm received widespread recognition for its design of outdoor music pavilions, most significantly Pine Knob in Michigan and Poplar Creek in the Chicago area. Other award winning projects included American Office Park (Southfield), Young Israel Synagogue (Southfield), Cleaners Hanger Company (Bloomfield), Troy Place Office Complex, and Farmington Professional Pavilion. When the partnership terminated in 1981, Rossen formed Sanford Rossen & Associates in the same year.

Rossen served for nine years on the Southfield, Michigan Planning Commission and was active in committee work for the Detroit chapter of the American Institute of Architects. He maintained contact with the University of Michigan, and was an adjunct professor in the College of Architecture and Urban Planning. He also lectured at Lawrence Institute of Technology School of Architecture in Southfield. A newspaper article at the time of Rossen's death, while recounting numerous exemplary achievements in commercial and public structures, reported that his favorite buildings were three houses, including the one he and his family lived in for twenty-five years on a wooded tract on Mulberry Court in Southfield, Michigan.