Benjamin Hirsch and Associates, Inc. Records
Collection
Identifier: DM009
The seven series of this collection contain the professional papers of Benjamin Hirsch and his architectural firm, Benjamin Hirsch and Associates, Inc.
(40 document cases; 2 oversize cases)
See archivist for details regarding restrictions.
Permission to publish materials from this collection must be obtained from the Head of Archives and Special Collections.
17 Linear Feet
The seven series of this collection contain the professional papers of Benjamin Hirsch and his architectural firm, Benjamin Hirsch and Associates, Inc.
Series 1 consists of a small amount of personal and biographical information on Benjamin Hirsch. State certification records, including correspondence and paperwork as well as the certificates themselves, are found in Series 2. Series 3 documents Hirsch's involvement with associations, particularly those pertaining to religious architecture, while Series 4 contains publicity brochures and articles for Benjamin Hirsch and Associates, as well as for individual projects with which the firm was involved.
Series 5, by far the largest series, is made up of correspondence, invoices, plans, sketches, and other paperwork relating to the firm's architectural and design projects. The series is arranged into several subseries, by genre: Residential; houses of worship; other religious organizations; retail and commercial projects; exhibit design; monument design; and other projects. Series 6, Specifications, contains contracts and specifications for several construction projects, some of which have corresponding files in Series 5.
The final series, Series 7: Writings on Architecture, includes two articles on synagogue design and a typescript of Hirsch's Georgia Tech thesis (ca. 1958) on a house of worship.
Benjamin Hirsch and Associates is an architectural firm in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded by Benjamin Hirsch in 1978, the firm specializes in religious architecture, but it also produces residential, retail, and commercial projects as well as exhibit and monument designs.
Benjamin Hirsch was born in September, 1932 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, to Hermann Hirsch and Mathilda Auerbach Hirsch. In 1938, as the Nazi regime terrorized German Jews, Benjamin and his four older siblings were sent to France by their mother. Benjamin was separated from his siblings in France, but in 1941, he was sent by boat to America with his two sisters. The two girls and Benjamin met up with their brothers, and they built a new life in Atlanta, Georgia.
After graduation from Hoke Smith High School in Atlanta, Benjamin Hirsch attended the Georgia Institute of Technology to study architecture. Two years into the program, Hirsch joined the U. S. Army to fight in the Korean War. During his army service, Hirsch returned to Germany to search for his two younger siblings. In 1947, he discovered that his father had been killed by the Nazis in November 1942, and his mother, brother, and sister had perished at Auschwitz in 1943.
Hirsch returned to Georgia Tech and completed his five-year degree in Architecture in 1958. Once graduated from Tech, he became an architect in Atlanta. For a short time he was in practice with Warren Epstein in the firm of Epstein and Hirsch. In 1978, Hirsch founded Benjamin Hirsch and Associates, Inc.
Benjamin Hirsch and Associates, Inc. designed several award-winning structures, notably the Memorial to Six Million Jewish Martyrs in Greenwood Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia. Dedicated to the six million Jews killed in World War II, this monument is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Hirsch has published two autobiographical books, Hearing a Different Drummer: A Holocaust Survivor’s Search for Identity (2000) and Home is Where You Find It (2006).
Hirsch married Jacqueline Robkin in March, 1959, and they have three daughters and one son. Hirsch passed away in 2018.
The collection has been divided into seven series, some of which are further divided into subseries.
A print copy of this finding aid is available on request in the Georgia Tech Archives reading room.
Donation, 2011 (accession number 2011.070).
Visual materials have been separated and will be processed as DV009; artifacts will be added to the artifacts collection.
(40 document cases; 2 oversize cases)
Christine de Catanzaro, Sierra Harrison, and Germaine Schanzmeyer processed these records in December 2013.
Part of the Archives and Special Collections, Library, Georgia Institute of Technology Repository