Raphael Roig (1923-2014) was a Puerto Rican-born artist and architect. Roig grew up in New York City worked as an Army medic in Europe during WWII. He was so inspired by European architecture that he enrolled in Columbia University School of Architecture, where he graduated in 1955.
In the late 1950s Roig worked for Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill (an architectural, urban planning, and engineering firm) in Colorado Springs, and helped to design the Air Force Academy. He moved his family to Pacific Palisades, CA in 1960 and remained there for the rest of his life. He began work with the Air Force’s Space and Missiles Systems Organization in El Segundo and eventually went on to take a leadership role as an environmentalist.
Roig was an avid academic, earning three master’s degrees in architecture, industrial design, and public administration at UCLA and USC. Roig was always an artist outside of his work life; painting, working in stained glass, and sculpting in both stone and clay. He was a lover of art in all forms, from Impressionist painting to 20th century architecture to music, theater, and literature- all enjoyed alongside the natural beauty of the California coast.
Roig’s work in the Lost Art collection comes from a sketchbook he kept in the early 1960s. His petite drawings center on architectural details both real and imagined. Roig’s understanding of the fundamentals of structure effortlessly combined with an almost Surrealist ingenuity offer a unique vision, one grounded in a strong Mid Century aesthetic and brilliant use of the line.
