Jay Valgora

Jay Valgora grew up in Buffalo, New York. The steel mills where his father worked and the historic grain elevators of Buffalo influenced Valgora to become an architect.

Valgora studied architecture at Cornell University (BArch), Harvard Graduate School of Design (MArch) and was a Fellow in the Fulbright Program to the United Kingdom. At Harvard, Valgora studied under Pritzker Prize-winning Portuguese architect Alvaro Siza Vieira.

In London, Valgora commenced his investigations into industrial waterfronts, continuing with a Fulbright Fellowship.

In 1993, Valgora became design director of Rockwell Group, leading designs for the Cirque du Soleil theater, the Dolby Theatre (then known as the Kodak Theatre), the first W Hotel, and Mohegan Sun. Starting in 1998, as design principal of WalkerGroup, Valgora designed buildings in the United States, Spain, and Japan and began his investigations into combining contemporary design with historic and industrial architecture.

In 2000, Valgora established V Studio, a design studio. In 2000, Valgora designed the Iwataya Passage in Fukuoka Japan, and designed the set for Double Exposure, a multi-media dance production by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater that premiered at Lincoln Center, New York.

This practice formed the basis for founding Studio V Architecture in 2006. He began to focus on the redesign of industrial waterfronts to transform former industrial sites.