Close
naperville-french-country-style-home

About

Sean M. Gallagher, Architect

Each project is an opportunity for our firm to represent the art of architecture to a client who it is likely, has had limited opportunity to work with an architect. A great deal of our work as architects involves educating clients on everything from aesthetics to building systems, from foundations to sustainable strategies for design, from discerning contractual obligations to what window would best suit the client’s project. Through these interactions with our clients we come to a collaborative understanding that we each together make a stronger whole. As part of the collaborative team of owner and architect, the contractor is an essential participant providing invaluable insight into the realized product. Often we recommend that early in the design process contractors are invited to look at design work to provide budget and construction means insights to shape and guide the process. It is not uncommon that a client will select a contractor based on these early collaborative opportunities. Together with the client’s vision and the architect’s aesthetic and technical knowledge and the contractor’s understanding of how things go together a unique solution is created that embodies the art of architecture and collaboration.

open-floorplan-livingroom

"...a unique solution is created that embodies the art of architecture and collaboration."

Meet Sean

Sean M. Gallagher is an experienced Architect based in Geneva, Illinois.

Sean Gallagher Geneva, Illinois Architect

I first knew I wanted to be an architect as a fifth grader after writing a paper on Rheims Cathedral. Rheims made me realize that designers and builders create structures that could inspire people. This desire eventually led me to the University of Illinois at Champaign, where faculty like Henry Plummer, Ernst Beneder, and Jack Baker encouraged me to recognize the significance and substance of “place-making,” where light, material, and space converge to create places that have meaning beyond the immediate need for shelter.

After graduating, I worked for two years at a large corporate architecture firm. I found my calling when I went to work for R. Scott Javore and Associates in Glencoe. The firm designs additions to historic properties on Chicago’s North Shore with an emphasis on the strong relationship between architect, client, contractor and the historic home. It was there that I fully realized the role of the architect in making place. There is no more personal, real, day-to-day structure than one’s home. French Philosopher Gaston Bachelard reflects on the idea of home saying, “I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.” Bachelard saw the house as a very personal place for us to set aside the maelstrom of the day and live at peace. This relationship between the client and the architect allows for a great deal of personal insight into the lives of others. When working with clients my goal is to make a place befitting each client’s individual daydreams.

In 2004, with the encouragement of Scott Javore, I began my practice in Geneva, Illinois. My first commission was the Westberry-Goldsmith house, a tricky Arts and Crafts project that earned a Preservation Award from the city of Geneva’s Historic Preservation Commission. I would soon follow this project with three others that would receive recognition from the city of Geneva as well.

Along with my practice, I teach undergraduate and graduate courses at Judson University in the School of Architecture. My teaching allows me the opportunity to bring to the classroom insights into the daily work life of an active practitioner. I continue to work throughout the Fox Valley with projects in Elgin, Wayne, Saint Charles, Geneva, Batavia, Elburn, Wheaton and Glen Ellyn. I count it a great joy to work in the community that I live, serving neighbors and helping strengthen the architectural fabric of the Fox Valley.

 

naperville-architecture-guest-bedroom

Ezra Pound

A real building is one on which the eye can light and stay lit.

Winston Churchill

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

Frank lloyd wright

A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines.