Archinect - News

Architect of famed Miami Marine Stadium, Hilario Candela passes away at 87

2022-01-21T11:57:00-05:00

"Candela believed the campus buildings and the spaces between them were equally important. He described the campus master plans as “a small city of interconnected geometric masses and urban plazas,” and composed the buildings around structural systems of towering columns and cantilevers, connected by covered walkways."

Cuban American architect Hilario Candela passed away this week at the age of 87 due to complications with Covid-19. With his partner, Peter Spillis, who passed last year in March, the duo were pioneers in the development of Miami's architectural scene with their eponymous firm Spillis & Candela. But at the young age of 28, Candela created what will surely be remembered as his masterpiece; a poured concrete stadium with a sweeping geometric cantilevered roof known as the Miami Marine Stadium. Although the stadium sits idle today waiting for restoration efforts, it was once home to speed boat races, concerts, and many other activities along the waterfront at its location in Key Biscayne. The impressive structure was considered the longest cantilever in the world at the time of its creation, which Candela created in order for all 6000 plus seats to get a glimpse of the water and downtown Miami skyline. It has since been designated as a National Treasure from the National Trust of ...

Swiss architect Luigi Snozzi dies of Covid-19

2020-12-30T13:12:00-05:00

Luigi Snozzi, considered the leader of the so-called new Ticino school of architecture, has died aged 88 in Minusio, southern Switzerland. [...] He worked in Locarno (1958), Zurich (1975-88) and Lausanne (1988), and collaborated with Mario Botta, Tita Carloni, Aurelio Galfetti, Bruno Jenni (his brother-in-law) and Livio Vacchini.

In a 2013 interview with the AEFoundation, Snozzi said: "I would say the biggest problem today for architects is the city, and for that reason it is important in architectural education to start with the problem of the city."

"Whereas usually in education one starts with a small project a little house or something like that, I think that instead I would rather start with giving them a piece of the city to design. You first have to learn about the city and then you can do a house because that is in a sense out of context with the city and it’s the most difficult project because every single room has different requirements; living room, bedroom, kitchen and so on."

George Eugene Kostritsky, founding member of RTKL, passes away at 98 from COVID-19 complications

2020-09-10T12:57:00-04:00

George Eugene Kostritsky, one of the founding members of the architecture firm RTKL (now CallisonRTKL), has passed away. According to a remembrance posted to the CallisonRTKL website, Kostritsky passed away from complications resulting from COVID-19; He was 98 years old.

Kostritsky was born in 1922 in Shanghai, was raised in San Francisco, and ultimately settled in Baltimore, where the firm he helped found got its start. Kostritsky served in World War II and was educated at the University of California, Berkeley, later going on to study briefly at the Princeton University Graduate School of Architecture before eventually transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a master’s degree in planning and urban design.

Described as "a classic modernist" in an obituary published by The Baltimore Sun, Kostritsky arrived at the existing Rogers, Taliaferro, and Lamb firm in 1961, bringing an urban planning sensibility to the practice that would help expand the sc...

Michael Sorkin and the politics of architecture

2020-04-13T14:03:00-04:00

[...] Michael advocated for collective, neighbourly, and walkable cities, while also practising architecture and urban design in ways that embraced these same principles. Even so, his shrewd wit always recognized the fallacy that architecture can change society by itself. “Architecture is never non-political,” he told Aleksandra Wagner in a 2006 interview “it always reinforces a set of social relations, whether within the family or between the ruler and the ruled”.

Architect and educator Fadi Shayya pens a heartfelt, personal tribute to the late Michael Sorkin, pointing out his involvement in Palestine and initiatives like the Open Gaza project.

"So many others were closer to Michael," Shayya writes in Failed Architecture. "So many others are more qualified to speak of how we lost an architect, urbanist, activist, author, and teacher with Michael’s passing. To me, we lost a forceful and inspirational presence for social justice, Palestine, and humanity."

Influential architect, educator, and critic, Michael Sorkin, passed away from COVID-19 on March 26, 2020.

Rifat Chadirji, father of Iraqi “international regionalism,” dies from COVID-19 at 93

2020-04-13T13:42:00-04:00

Rifat Chadirji, a world renowned international architect from Iraq, has passed away in London following a positive diagnosis for COVID-19.

Chadirji was born in on December 6, 1926 and passed away April 10, 2020.

Throughout a long career, Chadirji helped to develop and propagate a new pan-Arab architectural language that fused traditional architectural forms and building approaches with modern materials, building technologies, and functional uses.

Born into an influential political family in Baghdad while the Iraqi territories were under “British administration,” Chadirji studied architecture at the Hammersmith School of Arts & Crafts in London, graduating in 1952 with a degree in architecture. Upon graduating, Chadirji started the Iraq Consult IQC group, an architectural practice that he used as a launching pad for his inventive “architectural experiments.” Two years later, back in Iraq, he was appointed as the director of the Building Department of the Iraqi Waqf, a body that ove...

Michael McKinnell, co-designer of Boston's Brutalist City Hall, dies from COVID-19

2020-03-30T12:59:00-04:00

Michael McKinnell, a co-designer of Boston's love-it-or-hate-it Brutalist City Hall, has passed away from pneumonia following a positive diagnosis for COVID-19.

McKinnell was born in 1935 in Manchester, England and grew up during World War II. He earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture in 1958 from the University of Manchester in England and later attended Columbia University as a Fulbright scholar, earning an M.Arch degree there in 1960. Two years later, McKinnell and Columbia assistant professor Gerhard Kallmann joined forces to enter a competition for the design of Boston's new city hall. Their unexpected victory, both were unlicensed and neither had designed a building on their own at that point, served as a launching pad for Kallmann McKinnell & Wood, a practice that would go on to practice for decades to wide acclaim.

The Boston Globe reports that in 1969 McKinnell, describing his vision for the city hall building, told a reporter, "This isn’t a building where the pattern ...

Michael Sorkin, visionary and incisive architect, educator, critic, has passed away from COVID-19

2020-03-26T16:43:00-04:00

Michael Sorkin, the noted architectural critic and intellectual powerhouse behind Michael Sorkin Studio and Terreform, has passed away due to complications resulting from COVID-19.

Rest in Power: Michael Sorkin (1948-2020). Architect, Planner, Critic. #MichaelSorkin pic.twitter.com/ANkK3A4sm8
— Warren James (@wjames_com) March 26, 2020

The news was shared via Twitter this afternoon by New York City architect Warren James (@wjames_com) and was confirmed to Archinect by Lesley Lokko, Dean of the The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York where Sorkin was a Distinguished Professor and Director Emeritus of Graduate Urban Design Program.

In a statement sent to Archinect, Dean Lokko wrote, "It is with profound sorrow that we learned earlier today of the passing of one of our most valued and most brilliant faculty members, Michael Sorkin, from complications brought on by COVID-19. The entire faculty, staff and students are united in paying tribute t...

John LaPlante, engineer who helped fix Chicago’s “Z-Curve,” dies from COVID-19

2020-03-23T18:36:00-04:00

John LaPlante, a longtime city employee who served as the first commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation, died Saturday at 80 after testing positive for the novel coronavirus less than two weeks earlier. The son of a Cook County judge and the head librarian for the Chicago Public Schools, Mr. LaPlante was a “municipally minded” Roseland native who cared deeply about his city and its government, according to his daughter Leslie.

LaPlante worked for the City of Chicago for over 30 years, starting as an intern in the 1960s for what was then the city’s department of public works. He served as chief traffic engineer in the 1980s and as the city’s Transportation Commissioner in 1992.

John LaPlante. Image courtesy of T.Y. Lin International.

While working as the chief engineer, LaPlante helped to rework the infamous “Z curve” that plagued Lake Shore Drive for decades. Throughout his long career as a public servant, LaPlante worked to support and institute “Complete Streets” and other pedestrianization improvements in the built environment.

After retiring from the public sector, LaPlante worked for transportation engineers T.Y. Lin International for many years, retiring in 2015.

Vittorio Gregotti, Italian Neo-Avant Garde architect, has died from COVID-19

2020-03-16T11:31:00-04:00

Vittorio Gregotti, the noted Italian architect who helped initiate the inaugural architecture section of the Venice Biennale in the late 1970s, has passed away due to complications arising from COVID-19, The Guardian reports.

Gregotti was born in 1927 and was educated at the Politecnico di Milanoin the early 1950s. As a deeply political and concerned designer, Gregotti worked across genres, including as an architect, writer, editor, and curator and was a notable member of the Italian Communist Party.

The stadio Luigi Ferraris in Genoa. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons / Gabriel Rinaldi.

In 1976, Gregotti became the director of the Visual Arts Section of the Biennale, a role that he used to institute a more significant architectural focus for the exhibition. He was the director of the 1978 Biennale and created an exhibition around the theme of Utopia and the Crisis of Anti-Nature: Architectural Intentions in Italy.

Gregotti also built several significant commissions, including the...