Archinect - News

Pioneering UC Berkeley professor Sim Van der Ryn dies aged 89

2024-11-18T16:06:00-05:00

Dutch architect Sim Van der Ryn, a pioneer of green architecture and a longtime professor at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, has died at age 89 according to the San Francisco Chronicle. He will be remembered for his experimental teaching methods and approach to designing buildings as ecological systems, both of which later became widely accepted as either field looked to embrace sustainability as its new baseline standard.

Van der Ryn's memorial page on the CED's website also credits his work with Murray Silverstein as leading the way for post-occupancy user studies. Dean Renee Y. Chow added her own context to his legacy at the school, saying: "Sim was one of the people who laid the foundation for CED’s ongoing commitment to resilience and environmental equity. He was focused on how to build in environmentally friendly, energy-efficient, socially just ways long before 'sustainability' was even a term in the architectural lexicon. His influence, on Berkeley and beyo...

Renowned architectural critic and historian Joseph Rykwert passes away aged 98

2024-11-08T10:01:00-05:00

British architectural historian Joseph Rykwert has died. The influential academic and writer who was considered to be a leading critical voice of his generation, taking aim at the banality of modernism and its encroachments on the urban sphere, lived to be 98 according to his New York Times obituary.

Rykwert was the 2014 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture winner and author of more than a dozen texts on architecture and design. He also enjoyed a long and successful tenure as the Paul Philippe Cret Professor of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. His death follows the passing of colleagues Anthony Vidler and Jean-Louis Cohen last year.

Victor Lundy, famed modernist and key Sarasota School figure, dies at age 101

2024-11-07T10:32:00-05:00

Victor Lundy, the renowned modernist architect whose work leaned on fine art and espoused a more humane form of architecture for the masses, has died in Texas at the age of 101, the Sarasota Observer is reporting.

A true man of his times, Lundy served in the U.S. Army’s 26th Infantry Division during World War II (his sketches from the war are considered important) before returning home to complete his B.A. and eventually matriculate into the Harvard GSD, where he studied for his master’s degree under Walter Gropius.

Lundy’s religious commissions—including the First Unitarian Church in Westport, Connecticut, and the St. Paul Lutheran Church in Sarasota—are, perhaps, his best-known projects alongside the United States Tax Court Building in Washington, D.C. Lundy was considered one of the leading figures of the Sarasota School. His watercolor practice was another important aspect of his approach to designing. Docomomo US thanked him for his “optimistic spirit" in a commemorative post ...

Curtis J. Moody, FAIA, NOMA, founder of Moody Nolan, passes away at 73

2024-10-14T19:45:00-04:00

Curtis J. Moody, a trailblazing architect and founder of Moody Nolan, passed away peacefully yesterday, on October 13th, 2024. He was 73. Moody leaves behind a remarkable legacy as the leader of the largest African-American-owned architecture firm in the United States. His contributions to the field of architecture extended far beyond design, serving as a beacon for future generations of Black architects. His firm, Moody Nolan, shared the news in a statement on Facebook, noting that arrangements will be announced later this week.

Previously published on Archinect: A Conversation with Curtis Moody, FAIA on What It Means to Help Shape a Future for Black Architects

In a 2020 interview with Archinect, Moody shared insights about his early challenges, career, and vision. Reflecting on his journey, Moody described how his upbringing in a low-income neighborhood near Columbus, Ohio, and exposure to architecture through a family friend inspired him to pursue the profession. Despite facing di...

Colin Fournier, popular Archigram co-founder and UCL professor, passes away at 79

2024-09-17T12:35:00-04:00

Colin Fournier, the British architect and planner who helped form Archigram with Sir Peter Cook and others in the early 1960s, has passed away at age 79. He was best known for the firm’s 2003 Kunsthaus Graz and work with Bernard Tschumi on the design of Parc de la Villette in Paris.

A commemoration from the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture notes: “In addition to his architectural practice, Colin was a dedicated and well-loved educator. He joined The Bartlett in 1998 and inspired generations of students for almost two decades with his distinctive approach to design. As Professor of Urban Design, he was instrumental in the formation and directorship of the Urban Design MArch and led the successful Unit 18 on the Architecture MArch programme for several years with a number of teaching partners. Colin inspired countless students and colleagues throughout his life, and his absence will be felt profoundly by all who were fortunate enough to know him."

In a statement to the Architects’ ...

Fumihiko Maki, a leading icon of modern Japanese architecture, passes away in Tokyo aged 95

2024-06-12T12:56:00-04:00

Fumihiko Maki, the 1993 Pritzker Prize laureate and a leading figure in Japan's Metabolism movement, passed away in Tokyo on June 6th, his Maki and Associates firm announced late Tuesday. He was 95.

Maki was born in Tokyo in 1928 and immigrated to America to study at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and then the Harvard GSD, working in the New York offices of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM) and for Josep Lluís Sert's Cambridge, Massachusetts studio before returning to Japan to found his own practice in 1965.

Online, Maki is being remembered for his many varied important works spread across three continents. Fans will recall his visionary contribution to the rich lineage of residential architecture in his home country, most notably the multiphase Hillside Terrace Apartments (completed between 1967 and 1992) that garnered several awards, including the country's prestigious Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 1973.

Maki's MIT Media Lab (E14) building, home to the Jerome Leme...

Supergraphics pioneer Barbara Stauffacher Solomon dies at 95

2024-05-13T19:06:00-04:00

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, the influential California-based graphic designer and landscape architect, passed away on May 7th in San Francisco at the age of 95.

Stauffacher Solomon died a prominent member of the design community whose career advanced aside an unusual synthesis of modern art, design, and architecture with many noted collaborators in all three channels and will be particularly remembered for the Supergraphics paintings she made in the late 1960s while in residence at the Sea Ranch utopian community.

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon's Land(e)scape, 2018. Image courtesy Rob Corder/Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0 Deed)

“It took a lot of verve for Bobbie to survive in a hostile environment, let alone blaze a trail,” biographer Joseph Becker recalled to the New York Times’ obituary section. “But she had the ability to create these amazing works that reflect her attitude that there should be something fun about the spaces we inhabit. In graphic design, landscape architecture, and her boo...

Esteemed academic and architect Janice Shimizu has passed away at 54

2024-04-17T13:54:00-04:00

Archinect is remembering the life and legacy of Ball State University architecture professor Janice Shimizu, who has passed away at the age of 54.

Janice won many hearts and minds throughout an estimable career in academia and the professional realm, sentiments that were repeated by the many people with whom she became familiar through her involvement in the Japanese-Canadian community in and around her native Manitoba.

She earned a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from the University of Manitoba before completing her graduate studies at SCI-Arc, later entering professional practice with Thom Mayne and Morphosis in Los Angeles and, in 2004, founding the now widely-recognized studio Shimizu + Coggeshall Architects (S+Ca) with husband Josh Coggeshall.

Revisit our 2017 Archinect Sessions conversation with Janice Shimizu below.

Donna Sink has shared the following thoughts with Archinect: “Janice was not only deeply respected but deeply loved by her colleagues and by hundreds o...

Celebrated Italian design and automotive magnate Paolo Pininfarina passes away aged 65

2024-04-09T19:07:00-04:00

Paolo Pininfarina, the Italian business leader credited with expanding his family’s automotive enterprise into architecture and other areas of the design field, has died in Turin at the age of 65. The Pininfarina Chairman was known as a visionary who designed more than 600 cars after completing his engineering studies at the Polytechnic University in his home city.

"On behalf of the Board of Directors, the Board of Statutory Auditors, and all Pininfarina employees, I express deep sorrow and condolences for the loss of our dear Chairman," Pininfarina's CEO, Silvio Angori, said in a press release.

Light Towers by Pininfarina in Mérida, Mexico. Image courtesy Pininfarina

"We are all extremely grateful to Eng. Pininfarina for his extraordinary contribution to the company and for always passionately advocating for our history and corporate identity both in terms of style and ethical and behavioral choices," his statement continued. "I am personally grateful to him for confirming me in th...

Beloved Italian designer and architect Gaetano Pesce passes away at 84

2024-04-04T18:05:00-04:00

Gaetano Pesce, the critically acclaimed Italian architect and designer of thought-provoking furniture, has passed away in New York City at the age of 84. He will be remembered for a groundbreaking career that spanned six decades and saw his many designs scattered across four continents and collected by major worldwide institutions, including MoMA, Vitra Design Museum, and Centre Pompidou.

After beginning his career as an industrial designer in Italy in the 1960s, the 2023 Andrée Putman Lifetime Achievement Award winner turned into one of the leading figures behind the Radical Design movement. His contributions included the Up5 chair he made for B&B Italia, the Moloch floor lamp, and other artistic pieces that commented on politics and society through its heyday until the end of the 1970s.

Up Chair series by Gaetano Pesce, 1969. Photo courtesy Créateurs Design Awards

He would later move to New York to teach at Pratt Institute in 1980, a position he held in addition to running a simul...

Richard Serra, monumental steel sculptor and inspiration to many architects, has died at 85

2024-03-27T11:20:00-04:00

Richard Serra has died. The 85-year-old sculptor who made architecture more or less a permanent condition of his art was known for inventing a process for bending corten steel to create works he explained were about eliciting sensation and intended to display the unseen physical forces of nature.

More than any other contemporary artist (Sarah Sze, Robert Irwin, Richard Estes, etc.) whose work is informed by or makes as its subject architecture, Serra’s use of steel as a means of organizing space and sequencing experience within it is, arguably, the greatest primer for any learner embarking on academic studies in the field.

He began his experimentations first with rubber before advancing to cast lead and then finally steel, a material whose properties and building potential he understood innately thanks to time spent working in steel mills during his early years in California. The opportunity to study art at Yale University changed his life thereafter.

Serra's 'Bend' sculpture at the...

Acclaimed architect Jeffrey Beers passes away aged 67

2024-03-22T11:59:00-04:00

New York's Jeffrey Beers International (JBI) has shared news that its founder Jeffrey Beers passed away from a battle with cancer on Monday, March 18th, at the age of 67.

A prominent figure in hospitality design and planning schemes, Beers began his career as an architect in I.M. Pei's New York office shortly before forming his own studio practice in the city in 1986. The next 38 years have seen its brand grow in influence to be synonymous with celebrity chefs and entertainers, corporate America, and international hotel brands.

Beers credited his Fulbright program mentor Oscar Niemeyer and former RISD professor glass artist Dale Chihuly among his influences as he pursued an architecture that suffused fine art, luxury, and a highly-tuned sensibility for good design.

“Throughout my career, I’ve been very fascinated by the intersection between architecture, design and art. Over the years I have collaborated with many artists, incorporating their work in a space but also bringing their...

Le Corbusier protégé and longtime Knowlton School professor José Oubrerie dies aged 91

2024-03-12T19:42:00-04:00

José Oubrerie, a French architect with ties to many leading modernists, has died at the age of 91.

The longtime Knowlton School professor was noted for his academic accomplishments and for being one of the last surviving members of Le Corbusier’s studio. He inspired many generations of students to long careers in architecture, departing with his own being both highly decorated and admired within the broader community of professional design.

"He showed a direction for architecture during a time of great confusion," friend Steven Holl wrote in a tribute published to his firm’s website yesterday. "Now at a time where architecture seems to have drifted into commercial activity with firms of hundreds of people, he reminded us that in the office of Le Corbusier, at the end, there were only six employees including José. His dedication to architecture came with a jolly sense of humor and enormous bank of stories, which shall be passed down by many as dedicated as he was."

Oubrerie and Holl...

Autodesk founder John Walker dies aged 74

2024-03-08T14:45:00-05:00

The New York Times is reporting Autodesk founder John Walker to have died on February 2nd at the age of 74.

The technologist and Case Western Reserve University alumnus is credited with the development of AutoCAD, a software tool which revolutionized architectural design and paved the way for the industry to expand considerably in regards to output beginning in the 1990s.

Walker, along with 12 programmers, formed the company with $59,000 in 1982 and served on its board as chairman and president until he stepped away from leadership roles in 1986, penning a memoir of his experiences titled The Autodesk File three years later.

Since then, he lived mostly in Switzerland, working on programming for the company until 1994. Autodesk grew during those years to become one of the world's ten largest software companies. Autodesk, which had to shutter its San Rafael, California, location amidst the recent recession in the tech industry, now has more than twenty offices and reported a total o...

Iconic American interior designer, businesswoman, and fashion icon Iris Apfel dies at 102

2024-03-06T11:18:00-05:00

Iris Apfel, an iconoclast interior designer who drew praise for her style and fashion collection, passed away last week at the age of 102. The New York Times is reporting on her influence in the design world this week following her death on March 1st.

Through the work of her label Old World Weavers, the Queens native became a commercial success designing the White House's interiors and remained an influence in that realm for many subsequent generations. Apfel picked up her famous eye from her father, who designed and installed mirrors during New York City’s first skyscraper boom. Throughout her lucky turn at celebrity, she remained a vocal advocate for quality. She also taught a textile design course at the University of Texas at Austin in 2011.

“There’s very little creativity left. Everybody copies everybody else,” she said to AnOther magazine in 2018. “I don’t know whether everybody wants the same or the designers give it to them – I have no idea, I’ve been out of it for too long ...

Former AIA Gold Medalist Antoine Predock passes away aged 87

2024-03-05T12:00:00-05:00

The Albuquerque Journal is reporting Antoine Predock to have passed away on March 2nd at the age of 87.

The architect and long-tenured University of New Mexico faculty member left a mark on the state he called his “spiritual home” over a four-decade career that culminated in the 2006 AIA Gold Medal and a Lifetime Achievement honor from the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards the following year.

Predock is best known for creating the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg and a definitive portfolio of public, institutional, and residential designs in New Mexico and the Southwest Region, which was a constant source of inspiration. His work outside of the state eventually garnered the most recognition, notably his design for Austin, Texas’s City Hall, the Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, and the well-admired Petco Park in San Diego.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Winnipeg. Image: Ken Lund/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Predock also operated an office in Taiwan ...

Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects co-founder Marsha Ann Maytum passes away after battle with ALS

2024-02-14T12:17:00-05:00

Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects has announced the passing of its founding principal Marsha Ann Maytum at the age of 69 following her battle with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). She is being remembered as a champion of environmental concerns and the holistic approach to architectural design. Her colleagues will also remember a quiet leader whose steadfast effort brought the firm national attention on the way to several major awards, including the 2017 AIA Firm Award and multiple AIA COTE Top Ten honors.

“Marsha’s vision, mentorship, and generative force to get things done lifted many of us, helping us to see and realize the positive change that is possible. She helped us understand what we — and architects together — can do to change the world and empower the next generation,” HKS Principal Julie Hiromoto wrote in a statement Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects published Tuesday.

The Berkeley Way Apartments and Hope Center by Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects. Photo: Bruce Damonte.

The Bay A...

Thornton Tomasetti CEO and co-founder of Charlie Thornton passes away at 83

2024-01-05T14:20:00-05:00

Charlie Thornton, the well-admired structural engineer, co-founder and CEO of Thornton Tomasetti, passed away in early December at the age of 83, according to his firm.

The Bronx-born Thornton began his career in the New York offices of Lev Zetlin Associates before pursuing a new venture with Richard Tomasetti after 1977. What followed was a long and decorated career in building, with the world’s first supertall designs — Malaysia’s Petronas Towers and the Taipei 101 in Taiwan — among the signature projects in a globe-spanning portfolio that would later include One Liberty Place in Philadelphia, the forthcoming Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia, and the delivery of new Yankee Stadium in his hometown.

“Charlie was a visionary, foreseeing the needs of structural engineering, our clients, the building industry and the public it serves,” Tomasetti said in a firm statement. “He was equally dedicated to mentoring everyone in our firm, our partners, and future generations through his founding...

In memoriam — those we lost in 2023

2023-12-23T08:00:00-05:00

The death of an architect offers the opportunity to reflect on past icons while narrating their careers through architecture with the thoughts of their peers and a list of achievements in tow. Looking back, we recount lives in the field all too often simplified into being preeminent or respected with their outputs, like the state of architecture, being too far spread and impermanent to ever adequately explain.

In 2022, we saw the passing of many foundational figures in the industry. This year, we add more familiar names as we remember their work and legacy as part of our annual Year in Review rundown.

Below are some of the influential architects, landscape architects, and industry leaders we lost in 2023.

Jean-Louis Cohen (1949–2023)

Jean-Louis Cohen, 1949–2023. Image: Mandanarch via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

In August, the passing of the beloved French theorist and architectural historian was shared widely as past students and other admirers remembered fondly what his writin...

Gene Aubry, noted architect, dies at 88

2023-12-16T14:33:00-05:00

Aubry died Saturday in Palmetto, Florida. He was 88. He was the architect behind the Wortham Center in Houston and he finished the design work on that city’s Rothko Chapel.

Aubry began his career in the office of Howard Barnstone, where he advanced to a prominent role in that practice. One of their best known projects was the Rice University Art barn and Media Center. Later, as a leader in the firm of Morris*Aubry, Aubry was the designer of numerous important Houston buildings of the 1970s and 80's. These projects include the the downtown Central Library, First City Tower and the Glassell School of Art.

UCSB megadorm designer Charles Munger passes away at 99

2023-11-29T18:57:00-05:00

Charles Munger, the billionaire investor whose proposed design for a monolithic, partly windowless dormitory at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) was the subject of a public controversy that drew critical ire and the eyes of outside media, passed away yesterday at his home in California. He was 99.

Known widely as Berkshire Hathaway founder Warren Buffet’s “right-hand man,” Munger was himself a lauded financier with a reported net worth of around $2.6 billion. His forays into architecture — which he had credited to the college experiences of his many children and grandchildren — included the late UCSB project, his own self-designed residence in Los Angeles’ Hancock Park neighborhood, and another dormitory at his alma mater, the University of Michigan, that was funded largely by his personal donation of $110 million.

Image courtesy UCSB

The controversy surrounding Santa Barbara's since-canceled Munger Hall project never seemed to dampen his ambitions to see its design...

Canadian housing pioneer and RAIC Gold Medalist Jerome Markson passes away at 94

2023-11-21T12:28:00-05:00

Jerome Markson, the 2022 RAIC Gold Medalist and modern social housing pioneer whose influence was felt widely across Canada, died in Toronto on Saturday, November 18, The Globe and Mail reported. He was 94 years old.

Markson will be remembered as a progressive architect who affected the post-1970s immigration boom in Greater Toronto through humane and uplifting designs for The Smith Residence (1955), Market Square Condominiums (1980), Group Health Centre in Sault Ste. Marie (1962), and Alexandra Park Public Housing (1965), among others.

“His work epitomizes a deep caring towards those who will use and enjoy his projects as well as the communities in which they exist. Many architects will offer praise by referring to colleagues as an ‘architect’s architect’. Jerome Markson is certainly deserving of the title ‘planner’s architect’ — quite possibly a more difficult and exceptional achievement within the profession,” the jury citation for last year’s RAIC Gold Medal states concisely. ...

Groundbreaking conceptual artist Robert Irwin dies at 95

2023-10-26T15:35:00-04:00

Robert Irwin, a pioneering conceptual artist and leading figure of the Light and Space movement whose work had significant influences in architecture, passed away last night in San Diego. He was 95.

Irwin helped push the boundaries of American post-war art with his understanding of the principles of design. Along with a cohort of artists like James Turrell, Richard Serra, Larry Bell, and Donald Judd, Irwin worked to constantly challenge the perception of his viewers. He left behind painting to pursue a “conditional art” that espoused a further shift away from pictorial composition and towards the responsiveness of art objects to the context of a site.

Irwin’s collaborative site-conditioned work with institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Dia Art Foundation, and LACMA set new precedents for the inclusion of living artists in a museum’s program, the influence of which today can be seen in the careers of Marina Abramović and Isaac Julien, among others. Irwin was also ...

Beloved architectural historian, scholar, and academic Anthony Vidler passes away at 82

2023-10-20T15:16:00-04:00

Princeton University has shared news of the passing of beloved longtime School of Architecture faculty member Anthony Vidler yesterday, October 20th, after a short battle with illness. He was 82.

Vidler was known throughout academia as a formative mentor and thought leader who shaped the development of architecture from within the apparatus of higher education, inspiring thousands of students into both teaching and professional practice during his over 50-year career.

Born in England, Vidler studied at the University of Cambridge and Delft University of Technology before coming to the United States to teach as Princeton's William R. Kenan Jr. Chair of Architecture. It was there, in 1965, that he became the SoA’s first-ever History and Theory Ph.D. program director, steering it for a period of 30 years before he departed to serve as the Dean of Cornell University's College of Art, Architecture and Planning. He would later go on to be appointed Dean of The Cooper Union Irwin S. Chanin...

Harriet Pattison, landscape architect and longtime Louis Kahn collaborator, dies at 94

2023-10-10T18:47:00-04:00

Harriet Pattison, a noted American landscape architect who worked closely with her romantic partner Louis Kahn, passed away in Philadelphia last week, according to their son, filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn. She was 94.

Pattison enjoyed a career that spanned more than thirty years, working predominantly in Maine and Pennsylvania before she pursued her own path following the death of Kahn in 1974. Pattison studied landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania after working briefly in Dan Kiley’s Vermont-based practice. She would later go on to work alongside Kahn on the Kimbell Art Museum and Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park projects through a position with George Erwin Patton. Pattison was also inducted as a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2016.

Pattison was instrumental in creating the landscape architecture at Louis Kahn's design for the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Photo: Carol M. Highsmith/Library of Congress (Public Domain)

Patti...

Trailblazing architect and inclusion advocate Beverly Willis passes away at 95

2023-10-02T20:16:00-04:00

Trailblazing architect, industrial designer, and inclusion advocate Beverly Willis passed away on October 1st in Connecticut from complications related to Parkinson’s disease, the New York Times reported on Monday. She was 95.

The founder of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation leaves behind a legacy of wide-reaching philanthropic efforts, espousing throughout her career the position of women in the architectural and engineering trades. She pursued a prescient design agenda and building activities that served as valuable early lessons in the development of accessibility concepts, adaptive reuse, historic preservation, and sustainable design.

Willis was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1928, coming of age in a post-war America defined by “self-made people” and influenced heavily by figures such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. She studied engineering at Oregon State University before transferring to the University of Hawaii to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and then ...

Acclaimed Canadian landscape architect Claude Cormier has died aged 63

2023-09-18T20:10:00-04:00

Canadian landscape architect Claude Cormier, a deeply admired figure within the country’s design community, passed away on September 15th at the age of 63 following a battle with cancer, the CBC and other outlets reported over the weekend.

The founder of CCxA was behind many of the country’s most beloved public spaces, parks, and memorial designs, including Toronto’s Berczy Park, downtown Montreal’s new The Ring installation, and the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa. A statement from the firm credited him as being a “great visionary who influenced us in surprising and powerful ways, thanks to the creative force and joie de vivre he brought to all our lives.”

The RIng, Montreal. Photo: David Boyer Photographe Inc.

Born and raised in Quebec, Cormier studied at the University of Toronto and Harvard GSD before entering practice in Montreal in 1993. Over the years, Cormier’s work received more than 100 separate awards and honors, including being named to the prestigious Ordre Natio...

Celebrated Canadian architect Raymond Moriyama passes away aged 93

2023-09-05T13:45:00-04:00

Raymond Moriyama, a generational talent who greatly influenced the development of modern architecture in his native Canada, passed away on September 1st, according to his studio. He was 93 years old.

The founder of Moriyama Teshima Architects (MTA), Moriyama will be remembered for contributions such as the Ontario Science Centre, Canadian War Museum, and Bata Shoe Museum that were emblematic of his humanitarian commitments, personal experiences with multiculturalism, and social philosophy.

The Bata Shoe Museum. Image: Ali Eminov via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

He studied architecture and planning at both the University of Toronto and McGill University before practicing independently until being joined by Ted Teshima in 1970. The pair then went on to garner acclaim internationally over their designs for the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, Etihad Museum, and the National Museum of Saudi Arabia, which was completed in Riyadh in 1999. Several major awards followed, and Moriyama ended his career wi...

Influential HHPA founder Norman Pfeiffer has passed away aged 83

2023-08-30T13:39:00-04:00

Norman Pfeiffer, an influential Southern California-based architect who founded the precursor to what is now Pfeiffer, a Perkins Eastman Studio, has passed away in Los Angeles after a short battle with illness.

Known for his contributions to the cultural and higher-education sectors of the region, Pfeiffer brought a collaborative approach to the design of public buildings that changed the ways architects think about a building’s effects on civic life and the public realm.

Born in Washington in 1940, Pfeiffer studied at Columbia University before founding the influential practice Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates (HHPA) with Hugh Hardy and Malcolm Holzman in New York in 1967. Before the firm disbanded in 2004, it had garnered national recognition through its designs for the renovated Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and the original Colburn School campus in downtown Los Angeles. An AIA Firm Award came in 1981, and Pfeiffer decided to expand his practice permanently to the Wes...

French architect, historian, and academic Jean-Louis Cohen passes away at 74

2023-08-09T12:10:00-04:00

Jean-Louis Cohen, a renowned architectural historian, critic, educator, and curator, has sadly passed away in the Ardennes after suffering an allergic reaction from a bee sting, according to reports published this week in France and the United States.

As the Sheldon H. Solow Chair of Architectural History at the New York University Institute of Fine Arts and former Penelope Visiting Professor in Architectural History at the University of Sydney, Cohen was a beloved figure remembered by many one of his publishers, like Artforum, as being a “knowledgeable interlocutor, author, and professor, and a warm and generous mentor.”

Cohen was born in France in 1949 and began a successful career in academia following the completion of his doctoral studies and a thirteen-year tenure as the director of architectural research for France’s Ministry of Housing. Beginning in 1998, he was influential in the development of the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine museum in Paris, which opened to the...