Resilient Life: Juliet Hernandez-Eli on Working Through Iterations, Nurturing Relationships, and Maturing in her Craft
By Julia Gamolina
Juliet Hernandez-Eli is principal of Hernandez-Eli Architecture, which she founded in New York City in 2017. Her practice is dedicated to architecture as transformative works of art and catalysts for cultural and socioeconomic progress. Over the last several years, the studio has transitioned from residential renovations to complex public realm work for clients including the Museum of Modern Art, New York Institute of Technology, and mission-oriented developers and operators. Juliet received her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Princeton University and her Master in Architecture from Harvard University. In her conversation with Julia Gamolina, Juliet talks about the principles that drive her work and career, and her approach to building her practice, advising those just starting their careers to get going and be forgiving of others.
JG: Tell me about your foundational years — where did you grow up and what did you like to do as a kid?
I grew up in a working-class family. My father, an immigrant from Puerto Rico, was a meat inspector for New York City before starting a heating oil business in the Bronx. My mother grew up in Chelsea where my grandparents, who emigrated from Northern Italy, opened a restaurant — Maison Blanc — located on 23rd Street. My mother is a teacher in the New York school system. Both my parents taught me that hard work and education lead to a resilient life.
My folks also encouraged me to participate in the arts. I trained rigorously in ballet and modern dance, dedicating over twenty-five hours per week during high school. I spent summers studying with the Boston Ballet, Royal Academy, and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. When I wasn’t dancing, I was in painting studio sessions with a local artist. I came to understand that the performing and fine arts are forms of creative expressions that distinguish the human condition.
My parents also instilled in me a sense of fairness. As I matured, I realized hard work and education alone do not make for success. You need some luck, and access to opportunity. And I observed that such access isn’t always equitable. Who you know matters. Resources matter. My sense of justice and equity, coupled with my deep reverence for the arts, informed my decision to become an architect and still guide my sensibilities.
Left: Juliet’s father, seated on the right, emigrated from Puerto Rico. Right: Juliet’s maternal grandfather standing in front of the family restaurant.
Juliet’s family encouraged her to engage in the arts. She trained rigorously in ballet and modern dance.
Juliet minored in printmaking before discovering architecture.
What did you learn about yourself in studying architecture?
Discovering architecture as a calling was a revelation itself. Prior, I was focused on the visual arts, minoring in printmaking during my sophomore year at Princeton. Rather impulsively, I took an introductory architecture studio with Lindy Roy. I realized architecture could be a conduit for me to practice an art that engaged issues of equity in real quantifiable ways.
I loved making things. I loved imagining futures. Architecture is one of the profound arts — a discipline that requires an entire collective of artisans to make. Architecture is a marker of our values of a time, and yet has the capacity to alter the way we live — to posit a relevant future. That’s what I love about it.
How did you get your start in working in architecture?
My first full-time gig was at SLCE, a firm renowned for their residential high-rise projects in New York. They often serve as the Executive Architect and have collaborated with BIG, Foster, Adjaye, among many others. This decision came as a surprise to several professors, one of whom asked endearingly, “Well, how did this odd move happen?” I wanted to build and confront the daily constraints that inform so much of architecture — building systems, structure, codes, zoning envelopes and financial models.
During a career fair at Harvard, I met Robert “Bob” Laudenschlager, Partner at SLCE, and our discussion of MEP systems in my fourth-semester housing project resonated with both of us. I joined SLCE to learn how to wield constraints as productive protagonists. The realities of building should enable architecture’s highest calling as an art, not undermine it. This framework — to protect and enable architecture — was critical to our many collaborations with other architects, and I found myself deployed on buildings designed by Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas. Before I turned thirty, I was working directly under Bob and had the opportunity to lead my own projects.
“I realized hard work and education alone do not make for success. You need some luck, and access to opportunity. And I observed that such access isn’t always equitable.”
Tell me how your practice came about? what you’re focused on these days.
The path to my own practice has not been a straight line. Subsequent to SLCE, I joined the owner’s side. I led capital projects for a private client. This experience broadened my understanding of the front-end decisions that fundamentally impact architecture. Like many architects, I was concurrently moonlighting. Eventually it made sense to establish a practice.
This decision coincided with having our second child. It was a common scene to find me walking construction sites and sitting in client meetings with a baby strapped to my chest, or my three-year-old daughter pacing the space. As the business owner, no one said to me, “You can’t do that, it’s against company policy.” Surprisingly, having a baby with me altered conversations with contractors, consultants, and owners in the loveliest ways. Everyone took turns holding my son. The care of our posterity is common ground.
In those early days of the practice, I didn’t have the luxury to be discerning, so I did every bathroom and kitchen that came to me. I honed my craft on projects with very limited means. Meanwhile, I nurtured my relationships with institutions, and really with anyone who would be willing to take a risk on me. Eventually the practice began to jump scales and programs. Now we’re working on ground-up houses, and equally important, the firm is engaging the public, cultural, and institutional realms through projects with the Museum of Modern Art, New York Institute of Technology, and IndiaHome, a non-profit dedicated to the cultural and functional needs of underserved South Asian seniors living in Queens, New York.
When first launching her practice as a young mother, it was common for Juliet to be accompanied by her children on site visits and client meetings.
Looking back at it all, what have been the biggest challenges? How did you manage through perceived disappointments or setbacks?
Practicing as a minority woman and sole-owner of an architecture firm can be a seemingly lonely endeavor, especially in those moments when the stress is high. But this is just life and the business risks are what characterize entrepreneurship and the burden of being an owner.
If I were to be more specific, finding moments of personal expression in the work is always a challenge. As I’ve matured, I think it is OK to find the right calibration between ethical obligations and personal expression of our craft. That’s why the Sculpture Stair at Casa Cruz was such an important moment for me — to admit that I am a formalist, that I am intuitive about it, and that both can be OK.
“The realities of building should enable architecture’s highest calling as an art, not undermine it. This framework — to protect and enable architecture — was critical to our many collaborations with other architects...”
What are you most excited about right now?
The ongoing work in the public realm is wonderfully exciting — public space and infrastructure upgrades for MoMA; auditorium, study spaces, and admissions areas for NYIT; in California, we’re designing a new ground-up house that is paired with the reclamation and re-use of a BART subway car. That project is a tremendous amount of fun as we rethink both typologies in relationship to one another.
That we’re in the position to chase larger, more complicated work fills us with great optimism.
As of late, making the time for side projects has been immensely stimulating. We’ve been developing bench prototypes, using the museum as the context. The focus has been on furniture with limited carbon footprint, while acknowledging that the museum bench is one of the first and most significant markers of publicness and equity in the museum. It signals a democratization of space. I have also been obsessed with children’s objects of play that also aspire to be a didactic tool. The dollhouse is one such item. I initially aspired to design and build dollhouses for my children, but it seems that time has passed. But it is still a relevant pursuit, and a way for me to study ideas around domesticity, ritual, symbolism and the vernacular.
Casa Cruz restaurant and club.
Currently in design, a residential project in California reuses a retired BART subway car.
Who are you admiring now and why?
I have the privilege of admiring the people who are also my mentors, though they may not realize it. Mentorship never ends, and it’s a wonderful way to be relevant. On the flipside, one is never too old to be mentored.
I’m surrounded by a community of women and professionals who lift me up and help me maintain my confidence. Certainly, Maddy Burke-Vigeland, who always makes time to inspire and guide me. Jean Savitsky, the Director of Real Estate and Sustainability at MoMA; while a client, I have profound respect for what she’s accomplished. Suzanne Musho, with whom I worked with at NYIT, keeps me focused on the big picture and helps me find the joy and humor in the creative process.
What is the impact you’d like to have on the world? What is your core mission? And, what does success in that look like to you?
I am acutely aware of my physical smallness. It’s overwhelming to consider changing the world, but I do believe that I can impact my local community. I do this in two ways — focusing on how we build and for whom we build. Beyond resolving the programmatic and site challenges inherent in any project, if I can bring an architecture that inspires wonder to a community that would normally not be afforded such experiences, well that would be what success looks like to me.
Lastly, I seek to take the things I learn home to the dining room table, so my daily experiences may inform the conversations with my children. As they mature, I hope they will be proud of the ways I’ve tried to navigate the crises of today, in a world they will inherit.
“Mentorship never ends, and it’s a wonderful way to be relevant. On the flipside, one is never too old to be mentored.”
Finally, what advice do you have for those starting their career? Would your advice be any different for women?
Just get going! You’re already on a path, and you don’t need to wait and design that path in a vacuum. You can’t. You have to iterate along the way and be OK with making mistakes. Lastly, those mistakes do not need to define your relationships with others. Maintain those relationships, behave with integrity, and be forgiving of others.