Modern Architect Charles Gwathmey dies
Charles Gwathmey, an architect of modern design known for his high-profile work, died Monday of esophageal cancer in Manhattan. He was 71.
Born in 1938, Gwathmey grew up both in North Carolina and New York. In 1962, he received his master’s degree in architecture from Yale after which he spent two years in Europe studying the works of Le Corbusier. Gwathmey and four others of the same era are known largely for incorporating Corbusian forms in their work. Gwathmey’s first big break was actually the design for his parent’s home which he completed while still in his twenties. Two years later, he paired with Robert Siegel to start the firm, Gwathmey Siegel & Associates.
Noted among Gwathmey’s celebrity clientele are the likes of Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Seinfeld, and JeffreyKatzenberg. Gwathmey’s list of projects is even more telling and include the International Center of Photography, the Museum of the Moving Image, the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, the Basketball Hall of Fame in Massachusetts, renovations at Yale University, an expansion of the New York Public Library, and most notably, an addition to Frank Llyod Wright’s design of the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.
Gwathmey is survived by his daughter, Annie; second wife, Bette-Ann, and step-son, Eric Steele.
[photo: Diane Bondareff/The New York Times]
Tags: architect, cancer, Charles Gwathmey, Guggenheim, modernism, Robert Siegel
