Prolific Hugh Hardy stands out from the crowd.

Throughout his prestigious career, Hugh Hardy, principal of H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, has always resisted the temptation many of his peers felt to emulate what he calls "the genius of the solitary architect."

"That seems to be the norm in the business. People have gone around remaking the world in their image," Hardy said. "For me, architecture has never been about that. I see architecture as a vehicle that helps me to assist other people to realize their goals, to achieve what they are interested in. I see the results of our work when people gather at Bryant Park or audiences come to the theatres. It gives me an enormous amount of pleasure to see that and to know that we helped make that happen."

His work spanning three companies--from Hugh Hardy and Associates, established in 1962, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates established in 1967, and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture established in 2004--and projects as prestigious as Radio City Music Hall and the American Academy of Sciences at 7 World Trade Center, has always reflected this spirit.

Hardy did not glean his theories about work in the classrooms of Princeton University, where he began studying architecture to pacify his father and where pioneer, Frank Lloyd Wright, lectured about architecture as a "mother art" on a regular basis, but in the theatres where he hid from those lofty ideals.

"I appreciated the cooperation that existed in the theatre, how everyone had to work together to pull a show off successfully. That ideal really appealed to me."

Not surprisingly, one of Hardy's milestone projects was a risky theatre venture that went against the grain of what everyone was doing at the time. Hardy--then running his Hugh Hardy and Associates--led efforts to restore the oldest theatre in the city, the Victory Theatre. The ornate domed theatre was built at the turn of the century but had been derelict for many years, nestled in a pocket of seedy cinemas on 42nd street. Hardy helped transform the Victory into the city's first performing arts center for children. He attributes the revival to Disney's decision to purchase space on the block. Some people try and blame Hardy for the "Disneyfication of Times Square," but the commercial retail culture that seemed to overtake the neighborhood around that time period was inevitable, he said.

"Now, whether or not 42nd Street will be a source of new creativity like it was in its heyday when Gershwin shows were first running down there, remains to be seen," Hardy said. "But there is no doubt that the restoration of the Victory instigated the revival of the theatre district in Manhattan."

More recently, Hardy worked long and hard to convince the Academy of Sciences to move from an old mansion on 63rd Street, where daylight did not seep into the rooms and employees were working in the former servants quarters, to their new accommodations on the 40th floor of the brand new tower at Seven World Trade Center. Their new home is a wide open space flooded with light and decorated with bright shocks of navigational flower wallpaper, an anamorphic projection of the Trial of Galileo and a carpet patterned with the DNA's double helix.

"In the Academy, it is all about the past--which can be a lethal point of view sometimes. We were able to take people who were very negative about leaving their home and relocate them to a space that now makes them very positive about their future. Now that they have moved, they are seeing the changes. Membership is increasing, funding is increasing, and the space is beautiful and inviting"

"Now the public can also come and learn how astonishingly important New York is to the realm of science," Hardy said.

The architect continues to push the envelope, trying to incorporate as much public space into the city as he can manage. The firm is currently in the beginning phases of planning Greenwich Street South, in conjunction with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, near the World Trade Center.

The plan may incorporate a park built over the entrance to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and bridges to improve connections between pedestrians at the World Trade Center and the financial district and Battery Park City where people might be "reluctant to give up their isolation."

Hardy's projects are an incredible fusion of the elements of New York, ranging from the modern glass dome of the Braisseire 8 restaurant, to a mixed use development in the Meatpacking District, to the startling restoration of the ornate gold leaf, latticework and blue sky roof of the Central Synagogue after a portion of it burned in a fire. His commitment to the city's diversity sustains his interest in the work, he said.

"It's amazing. This whole city is built on speculation," Hardy said. "It's all borrowed money. Borrow money, build a site. That explains the diversity of the buildings out there. The people that built them are so different from one another. They have different motivations--some are only concerned about how much money they are going to make from a property, others egos are all tied up in the buildings, they want to make the buildings reflect them, they want to make the buildings spiffy.

"But everyone's tastes are so different and everyone's ideas about what is spiffy are so incredibly different. That's what makes it so wonderful."