Biography

Tasso katselas began his professional education in the Engineering and Architectural Schools of Carnegie Institute of Technology.  After graduation, he worked for various firms in Pittsburgh until leaving for an extended tour of study in Europe.  Following this, he taught architectural design while continuing his studies, receiving a Master of Architecture degree in 1954. He then embarked on a cross country tour of appointed visits with prominent american architects. He returned to Pittsburgh from the West Coast in 1956 to begin his own pratice.

He has wone numerous design awards.  the most notable being acclaimed as finalist in the National Competition for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington D.C.  His work has been shown in exhibitions throughout the United States, and his projects and lectures have been published nationally and internationally.  He has received several Architectural Record Awards of Design Excellence and his design for the Pittsburgh International Airport has been repeatedly recoginzed as the best U.S. airport and has been honored as an "Impact Achievement" by the Federal Aviation Administration.

His diverse architectural practice includes work that ranges from individual houses to multi-million dollar developments, and includes schools, apartments, commercial building, jails, as well as the design and development of several social institutions such as Comunity Human Services, Jubilee Kitchen, the Program Center and a number of work release centers.  Major achievement has also been in urban redecelopment projects, and master planning with specific emphasis on individual buildings within these developed complexes, such as the Carnegie Science Center, The Allegheny Community College and St. Vincent Monastery and College Buildings.  the design and construction of the Pittsburgh International Airport is the high point of a career that spans 50 years of commitment to his art as expressed in the following quot

"Life in Architecture is a chance to intervene, to contribute, to enhance what exists by the sheer power of ones presence and activity. I am optimistic enough to hope for a world where the ugly will no longer be tolerated, I am realistic enough to know that the words economy and profit in architecture are not ugly words, but necessary ones that may limit the technician, but no the poet. I see our era as one teeming with lyric possibility, I sence a yearning, an exuberance where intense beauty is liberation. Architecture is life taking creative possession of space. It is a call to share in the world's making -- to enhance what exists by the sheer power of one's presence and activity. Great ideas burst all around us as we apprehend the ever - threatened truth that each and every man, on the foundation of his own prejudice, his understanding, his collaboration, his life, his suffereing, his joy, builds for us all."

Tasso Katselas was born 1927 in Pittsburgh, PA.  He married Jane Banning in 1951.  they have two daugters, Dana and Lisa.  In 2005 he transferred ownership of the firm TKA and continued on staff as a full time design consultant.