"Iconic American designer Ralph Lauren and his wife, Ricky, have established a professorship at the Yale School of Architecture in memory of the late architect Charles Gwathmey." New Haven Register

The Laurens, who were close friends of Gwathmey, who died Aug. 3, and his wife, Bette-Ann, set up the professorship for a prominent senior design faculty as an enduring legacy in his name, according to Yale School of Architecture Dean Robert A.M. Stern.

“Charles was one of the most distinguished graduates of our School of Architecture. By establishing this professorship, Ralph and Ricky Lauren honor Charles’ achievements and affirm the eminence of each incumbent named to the chair,” said Levin.

Stern announced that the first Charles Gwathmey Professor is renowned theorist, educator and visionary architect Peter Eisenman, who is currently the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale School of Architecture, and the principal of the New York-based Eisenman Architects.

He has designed large-scale housing and urban design projects, innovative facilities for educational institutions, and a series of inventive private houses. His Holocaust Memorial in Berlin was inaugurated on May 10, 2005, 60 years after the end of World War II. Among his other projects are the stadium for the Arizona Cardinals professional football team and a six-building City of Culture of Galicia in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, now under construction. He has taught at Cambridge University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Ohio State University and The Cooper Union, and is also the author of many books on his subject.

Gwathmey, who graduated from the School of Architecture in 1962, lived to see his last project, the Yale Arts complex, in its finished state: the restoration of the Art & Architecture Building (now Paul Rudolph Hall), the building and linking of the new Jeffrey H. Loria Center for the History of Art to Rudolph, and the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library. Gwathmey had worked with Rudolph on the design of the architecture building when he was an architecture student at Yale.

“The Charles Gwathmey professorship acknowledges the contributions Charles made as an architect, as well as his unique abilities as an educator to motivate young people. It is also a tribute we pay to an extraordinary artist and a dear friend,” said Ralph Lauren.

Gwathmey was known for the geometrically complex and meticulously detailed buildings he designed in a signature Modernist style. He was called a champion of High Modernism, and along with fellow architects John Hejduk, Richard Meier, Michael Graves and Peter Eisenman, they were known collectively as “The New York Five.”

In addition to his celebrity for designing residents for prominent clients, Gwathmey was also the designer of critically acclaimed institutional projects, including the International Center for Photography, the Museum of the Moving Image and the addition to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Fogg Art Museum in Cambridge.