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Longtime architect, advocate, and mentor Robert Traynham Coles has passed away at age 90 in Buffalo. Coles, who in 1994 became the first African American Chancellor of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), was celebrated for the quality and beauty of his architectural designs. His... View full entry
Jaquelin “Jaque" Taylor Robertson, FAIA, a founding partner of architecture firm Cooper Robertson and the urban designer behind the master plan for Celebration, Florida, has passed away at age 87. Aerial view of Celebration, Florida. Image by Robert Benson Photography. A message from Cooper... View full entry
Marvin Malecha, an architect, educator, and author, has passed away at age 70 in San Diego. News of Malecha's death was shared by NewSchool, where Malecha had been both President and Chief Academic Officer since 2016. A statement from the institution remembers the highly decorated design... View full entry
William Menking, educator, architectural historian, curator, and co-founder of The Architect’s Newspaper, has passed away at age 73 from cancer. Menking was born in 1947 on Ramey Air Force Base in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, and grew up in California’s Central Valley. Menking attended... View full entry
[...] 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”. — Failed Architecture
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
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... View full entry
Michael Hertz, whose design firm produced one of the most consulted maps in human history, the curvy-lined chart that New York City subway riders peer at over one another’s shoulders to figure out which stop they want, died on Feb. 18 in East Meadow, N.Y. He was 87. — The New York Times
In an effort to boost ridership, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, North America's largest public transportation network, formed a committee under the leadership of John Tauranac in the mid-1970s to create a new, more appealing map for the New York City subway system and replace the... View full entry
Yona Friedman, the Hungarian-born French Jewish architect who helped develop the concept of "mobile architecture" in the 1960s and 70s, has passed away at age 96. Friedman was born in 1923 and grew up during the Nazi era. Due to the fact that universities in Budapest had imposted strict admissions... View full entry
Beverly Pepper, the multi-talented artist who dabbled in monumental sculpture, land art, painting, and site design, has passed away at age 97. Over a career that stretches back over six decades, Pepper helped create a vast collection of large scale works that engaged materiality, form... View full entry
Adolfo Natalini, who, along with Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, co-founded the visionary architects' collective Superstudio, has passed away at age 78. Natalini was born on May 10, 1941 in Pistoia, Italy. He attended the University of Florence, graduating in 1966. That year, he... View full entry
Syd Mead, the legendary science fiction illustrator responsible for concocting the retro-futurist conceptual drawings that inspired movies like Blade Runner, Aliens, and Tron and other seminal sci-fi films, has passed away at age 86. Mead passed away in his Pasadena... View full entry
