By any standard, Rachael Grochowski is a star architect. Her fingerprints are everywhere in Montclair, where she’s helped design many iconic buildings, including Montclair Film’s headquarters, the Clairidge theater and the Madison Building. Her reach extends to adaptive reuses, community spaces, spas and homes across New Jersey and the country. This year, her firm, RHG Architecture + Design, is celebrating its 20-year anniversary, and NJBiz has named her a leading woman in business. She recently received historic-preservation awards for her renovations of Montclair’s Bellevue Theatre and the bank building on Watchung Plaza.
Grochowski’s achievements are even more significant when viewed in the context of the male-dominated field of architecture. Though more than 70 percent of architects nationwide are male, 13 of the 14 designers working out of her airy, art-adorned offices at Vault 491, the landmark building across from the Clairidge, that she redesigned, are female.
A single mother with three teenagers, Grochowsi started hiring women two decades ago because she wanted her firm to be the kind of place where employees could leave to pick up their kids. As the firm grew, she kept the female focus because, she says, “I wanted to create a space where everybody could have a voice and not be spoken over.”
Grochowski’s vision for RHG Architecture is equally intentional. Though the firm favors a modern aesthetic, it is sought after to design renovations of historic buildings. “We honor the generations of memories in these buildings and the architectural style while putting a modern spin on it,” she says.
She views architecture and design as a spiritual calling and a path to wellness. Also a yoga teacher who goes on frequent retreats, she brings a feeling of zen to her work, which keeps her grounded in a stressful field which, she says, is “essentially about perfection.”
Twenty-five years ago, after working on buzzy projects like the Cartier building in New York, she nearly quit. “I felt like I was designing stuff for people with money, and they weren’t appreciating it,” she says. “At some point, creating beauty and function isn’t enough. You have to find a purpose.”
For Grochowski, “living the yoga,” as she puts it, is about more than self-care. Her firm’s motto is, “Design is spiritual,” and she’s committed to creating spaces that promote belonging, safety and calm. She’s involved with Design on a Dime for Housing Works, which promotes social justice in architecture for the unhoused, people living with AIDS, and the formerly incarcerated.
“Where you live and work, it’s how you feel safe,” she says. “It’s the air you breathe, the view you have, how you connect to nature when you’re inside, it’s your access to the outside. In many ways, it literally is everything.”
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