Archinect - News

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

High-Tech pioneer and Hopkins Architects founder Michael Hopkins passes away aged 88

2023-06-20T15:30:00-04:00

One of the most notable contributors to the development of contemporary British architecture is being mourned after acclaimed Hopkins Architects co-founder Sir Michael Hopkins passed away last week at the age of 88.

A pioneer of the High-Tech movement, Hopkins was considered one of the most successful building designers in post-1970s England thanks to key projects such as 2001’s Portcullis House and the 1987 Mound Stand at Lord’s Cricket Ground that displayed a unique sensitivity towards historical context while helping to propel his generation of architects to widespread critical acceptance.

Hopkins' Schlumberger Research Centre, in Cambridge. Image courtesy Flickr user Valerian Guillot (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Joining with contemporaries Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, Hopkins broke conventions in almost every typology he worked with in order to establish the style against both the then-current and ages-old material heritage of the country that he would eventually come to reference in a si...

Influential Italian postmodernist architect Paolo Portoghesi passes away aged 91

2023-05-31T15:04:00-04:00

An important driver of postmodernism in Italy has been lost following the death of Italian architect, theorist, and historian Paolo Portoghesi in his native country this week at the age of 91.

The author of the 2000 title Nature and Architecture enjoyed a long and influential academic career in Italy while simultaneously working to complete several important religious and cultural commissions such as the Mosque of Rome, Strasbourg Mosque, Casa Baldi, and Theatre of Cagliari as an architect following his graduation from the Sapienza University of Rome in 1957.

Portoghesi also served as President of the Venice Biennale from 1979 to1992 and was a notable participant in the Documenta 5 exhibition and other key artistic exhibitions across Europe during the same time period. His teaching career began the previous decade at his alma mater, where his renowned expertise in Baroque architecture was further enabled via a collaborative relationship with his friend and mentor, Bruno Zevi.

The C...

Squire & Partners co-founder Michael Squire passes away aged 77

2023-05-10T13:07:00-04:00

Influential English architect Michael Squire has passed away at the age of 77 following a short illness, his firm reported this week.

The Squire & Partners co-founder began his career working for his father Raglan abroad in the mid-1970s before going on to start the firm with Paul Harrison in 1976. From there, the practice evolved into one of London’s leading names, creating a number of award-winning projects in different sectors over the proceeding three decades, including the Chelsea Barracks master plan, One Tower Bridge, and the Clarges Estate in Mayfair.

The firm’s own move into an outdated Edwardian-era department store in Brixton became one of the most heralded adaptive reuse office projects in the industry in recent memory, establishing for others and for themselves a home inside a four-level space that includes a members club, downstairs public gallery, studios, and the display of the annual Winter Windows competition, which provides local primary school pupils with the opp...

Construction fatalities in New York City have reached a three-year high

2023-04-14T10:00:00-04:00

A new report from the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) has shown an alarming increase in construction worker fatalities in the city for 2022.

A total of 11 deaths were recorded for the year, up from 9 the previous year and the 8 that were recorded in 2020. A total of 9 fatal accidents were the result of falls, which injured another 200 workers. Brooklyn led all five boroughs with 6 fatalities, while Manhattan led the tally of injuries at 255.

The DOB says an increase in building activity citywide is at least partially to blame.

This comes a year after the agency enacted a program of “zero tolerance” safety sweeps resulting in stop-work orders at nearly 1,500 construction sites throughout New York City. The year 2022 had a recorded decline in those orders. The report also cited the impacts of better safety equipment for workers and the increased emphasis on safety education practices.

HOK CEO and Chairman Bill Hellmuth passes away aged 69

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

HOK has announced the passing of CEO and chairman Bill Hellmuth on April 6th at the age of 69 following a long illness.

Hellmuth had been in the chairman’s post since 2017 after serving as the firm’s president since 2005. Working out of HOK’s D.C. office, where he remained as a design principal throughout, he helped lead the development of several well-recognized projects both in domestic markets and internationally. Hellmuth, whose work won 29 AIA awards, originally joined the firm in 1991 at founder Gyo Obata’s personal urging after practicing in New York for 14 years.

King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center Residential Community. Image courtesy HOK.

A firm statement said: “Hellmuth was exceptionally optimistic about the ability of design to improve people’s lives. A strong advocate of sustainable design, he believed architects had a moral obligation to design projects with minimal impact to the environment. Under his tenure, HOK designed hundreds of green-certified pro...

Kohn Pedersen Fox co-founder A. Eugene “Gene” Kohn passes away aged 92

2023-03-09T17:29:00-05:00

Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) co-founder A. Eugene “Gene” Kohn has passed away today in New York at the age of 92.

Kohn was a graduate of his hometown University of Pennsylvania and went on to found KPF along with his classmate Sheldon Fox and architect William Pedersen in 1976 after working for Welton Becket Associates' operation in New York.

From there, early commissions for One Logan Square in Philadelphia and 333 Wacker Drive in Chicago helped shape the firm’s trajectory through the 1980s, eventually ending the decade with a slew of major corporate commissions – 900 North Michigan Avenue, the CNG Tower, and 311 South Wacker Drive – included in its growing international portfolio.

KPF co-founders Sheldon (Shelley) Fox, Bill Pedersen, and Gene Kohn. Image courtesy KPF

By that time, the firm had become a known entity among other commercial giants such as SOM and Gensler. An AIA Architecture Firm Award followed in 1990 and would help Kohn and his partners expand into new practice areas w...

Rafael Viñoly passes away aged 78

2023-03-03T18:04:00-05:00

Rafael Viñoly has passed away at his home in New York City, according to reporting by the Spanish-language outlet El Pais.

The architect of many noteworthy international designs — including London’s 20 Fenchurch Street (aka the “Walkie Talkie Tower”) and the controversial 432 Park Avenue in Manhattan — reportedly succumbed to a brain aneurysm.

In a statement on the firm's website, his son Román said: "The firm’s partners and directors, many of whom have collaborated with him for decades, will extend his architectural legacy in the work we will continue to perform every day."

Rafael Viñoly at work. Image via Archinect's 2017 employment feature “All experience will have some form of relevance”: How to get a job at Rafael Viñoly Architects

Viñoly will be remembered for working across a variety of different project types and scales, authoring award-winning designs that captured the public’s attention in addition to the ire of critics while experimenting with scale and materiality in rel...

2021 was an increasingly deadly year for construction workers in New York

2023-02-24T14:24:00-05:00

In 2021, 12.1 per 100,000 construction workers in New York state died on the job, a 9% increase from 11.1 the year before, according to a new report from the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. The total number of workers who died in the state increased to 61 in 2021, up from 41 in 2020, reported NYCOSH, a membership organization that represents workers, unions and health and safety professionals.

The Committee also found that one-quarter of all workplace fatalities across New York state took place on construction sites, a repeat of the figure contained in the Deadly Skyline Report for 2020. Latino workers accounted for 25.5% of the deaths recorded, keeping pace with a larger grisly national trend. Overall, an average of 53.6 workers have died on job sites each year in New York over the past decade.

The NYC Department of Buildings had the same year enacted “zero tolerance” safety sweeps resulting in nearly 1,500 stop-work orders. The reform efforts were added to recently in the form of the new Carlos’ Law, which will increase the financial penalties on employers in negligent death cases from $10,000 to $500,000 (to a maximum of $1 million). In New York City alone, where 20 workers died, some 89% of construction sites had some form of safety issue, according to a ...