Henry N. Cobb, the bold Modernist architect responsible for the designs of a wide range of iconic buildings through his work with Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners, has passed away at age 93. 

Sadly, the great Harry Cobb has died at 93. A teacher, poet of form, gentleman, longtime partner of Pei, the architect of the Hancock Tower, still producing works of subtlety like the African American Museum in Charleston at the end of his life. A truly humane and generous soul.
— Michael Kimmelman (@kimmelman) March 4, 2020

Michael Kimmelman, architecture critic for The New York Times, broke the news Tuesday evening via Twitter. Word of Cobb’s passing was confirmed to Archinect by members of Pei, Cobb Freed & Partners.

In 1955, Cobb was one of three co-founders, along with I.M. Pei and Eason H. Leonard, of the now-storied Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners architecture practice, based in New York City. Originally, the firm was named solely after Pei (I.M. Pei & Associates), but was renamed in 1989 to include Cobb's name. Cobb was educated at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he served as Department of Architecture chair between 1980 and 1985. In 1992, Cobb was the Architect in Residence at the American Academy in Rome.

Over a long and illustrious career, Cobb, alongside Pei and an ever-growing roster of designers, helped give life to the skylines of several American (and international) cities during the latter half of the 20th century through his work as a lead designer for a range of projects that include the Place Ville Marie towers in Montreal (1962), the John Hancock Tower in Boston (1971), ARCO Tower in Dallas (1983), The Library Tower in Los Angeles (1989), Torre Espacio in Spain (2008), and most recently, 7 Bryant Park (2019). 

The projects, bold experiments that fused platonic shapes at a super-sized scale, earned the firm a special place in architectural history as purveyors of some of the most iconic (and tallest) towers of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

Henry N. Cobb, Res Publica from Princeton School of Architecture on Vimeo.

Cobb's work extended beyond high-rises, however, as he was also one of the lead designers behind the John Joseph Moakley Courthouse in Boston, the Anderson School of Management complex at the University of California, Los Angeles, the United States Courthouse in Hammond, Indiana, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City complex, and the International African American Museum on Charleston, South Carolina, among several other notable cultural and civic commissions.

Over the decades, Cobb won a slew of awards, including five American Institute of Architects National Honor Awards and an AIA Twenty-five Year Award for the design of the John Hancock Tower. Just last year, two Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners-designed towers—the Library (Now US Bank) Tower in Los Angeles and Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong) were listed among the 50 Most Influential Tall Buildings of the Last 50 Years by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. 

Cobb was the last surviving namesake partner at Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners; I.M. Pei passed away in 2019 at age 102, while James Ingo Freed passed away at age 75 in 2005.