Few individuals have birthday celebrations held in their honor years after they have passed away. But in the case of architect, professor, theorist, and poet John Hejduk (1929-2000) — who was dean of the school of architecture at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art for a quarter of a century — a celebration is more than merited.

A recent birthday commemoration was held in the Peter Cooper Suite atop the Cooper Union Foundation Building, which he renovated in 1975.The school’s current president, George Campbell Jr., said he had a deep appreciation for Hejduk’s “prodigious intellect and infectious and almost intoxicating passion that he had for architecture, for his commitment to teaching, and his great love for Cooper Union as an institution.” Among Hejduk’s many students who went on to become well known are Daniel Libeskind, Elizabeth Diller, Shigeru Ban, Peter Lynch, and many others.

In the 1970s, the Bronx-born Hejduk was grouped with Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and Richard Meier in a posse that was known as “the Five Architects.” While he taught at institutions outside of New York —such as a stint at the University of Texas at Austin — most of his career was at Cooper Union. There he explored wide-ranging interests, including the psychological aspects of built environments and encouraged interdisciplinary encounters. “Hejduk brought in surgeons, philosophers, anthropologists and poets,” the poet David Shapiro, a friend of Hejduk, said. “He didn’t feel that there was a wall between them.”

“This was an architect who gave the Romanian President what he described as ‘the best this country has to offer’ — the ‘Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson.'”

Mr. Shapiro recalled how Hejduk would point to his little desk at home and say, “This is where I create architecture, David. No office, no client, no assistants, nothing. Just architecture.”

The director of the Graduate Urban Design Program at the City College of New York, Michael Sorkin, said: “Although what he taught us was beyond distillation, one thing was clear: He never wanted to teach us to be him. John wasn’t looking for acolytes or disciples.”

A professor of architecture at City College, Carmi Bee, said he used to have a standing appointment with Hejduk every summer around this time of year: “I had no idea it was around his birthday. And we would get together and I would call it ‘my John tune-up.’ We would discuss everything under the sun, and I miss those times.”

A Cooper Union architecture professor, Diane Lewis, said Hejduk had a dignity, elegance, and gentlemanliness but also intellectual toughness.

Mr. Sorkin listed what he described as a small compendium of Hejduk’s singularities, which included,”his gigantic presence, commanding and graceful like Doctor J, but also endearingly not-quite-atease, the way I imagine Abe Lincoln was.”

Hejduk’s wife, Gloria, and daughter, Renata, spoke at the celebration.The latter said while her father dressed formally for class, he often wore jean cut offs and a floppy gardening hat while obsessively clipping the shrubs.

Mr. Sorkin recalled Hejduk’s “ineffable diction, somewhere between Berra and Baudelaire, a style of expression that encapsulated a constant reflection on the marriage of form and meaning.” He also recalled his “delicacy of thought,” and “his zero tolerance for fools and suck-ups,” and “his rage against mediocrity.”

He said he did not think it an overstatement to say Hejduk’s “enjoyment — because it always seemed so honest — was what kept his students at work,” because they hoped to please someone “whose delight could only be aroused authentically” and “more importantly, because they could see the real beatitude of creation and dreamed of finding a way there themselves.”

A former classmate, who shared the architecture award with Hejduk when they graduated in 1950, sent a letter from Maine that was read. It included this amusing recollection:

In our second year, the two of us together with a sculptor and a painting student were chosen by Cooper to collaborate and enter an international competition for the design of the modern English pub to replace those lost in the war. I remember how productive John was: overnight new ideas, meticulous drawings … We took our drawings to McSorley’s to get the opinions of the frequenters of that nearby pub, and I remember John’s pleasure being there, explaining and listening carefully to the responses while we enjoyed the fine ale.

gshapiro@nysun.com