Rafael Vinoly was a global architect of landmark buildings
Rafael Vinoly, a Uruguayanborn architect whose New York- based firm, founded in 1983, was responsible for major commercial and cultural buildings in nearly a dozen countries, died Thursday at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 78.
The cause was an aneurysm, said his son, Roman, who is a director at the firm.
Vinoly, a modernist, was not known for a signature style. But he did have a penchant for enclosing large spaces under glass, creating luminous interiors. His addition to the Cleveland Museum of Art, his Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia and his Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago all feature dramatic glassroofed courtyards.
In New York, Vinoly may have been known best for 432 Park Ave., a condo tower that, at nearly 1,400 feet, was briefly the tallest residential building in the world. Its gridded exterior has been praised by critics for its restrained elegance, even as it has been faulted for encroaching on Manhattan’s skyline.
Vinoly was at once a 24/ 7 architecture geek and a bon vivant with a penchant for French wines. He wore multiple pairs of black- framed glasses around his neck to make sure that he always had the right pair with him, and he was ready to sketch the most arcane architectural details.
He was also a classically trained pianist who gave recitals in a music pavilion on his property in Water Mill, N. Y., on Long Island. In 2011, he told the Times that he owned nine pianos, including one that he helped develop, with a curved keyboard making some notes easier to reach.
“Not many people thought the piano needed to be reinvented,” said architect David Rockwell, who worked with Vinoly on several projects. “He was voraciously curious.”
He was also extraordinarily loyal to his adopted
hometown; he pointed out, with pride, that he had designed buildings in all five boroughs. ( They included athletic facilities at Lehman College in the Bronx; the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, which he renovated; and a new police station house in Staten Island.)
After the World Trade Center towers were destroyed in 2001, Vinoly and architect Frederic Schwartz helped form the Think Team, which took an innovative approach to reconstituting the 16 acres of ground zero. Its key proposal was for a new pair of twin towers to be built as skeletons, vast filigree structures into which cultural buildings would be inserted over time.
The proposal was the first choice of the committee convened to pick a scheme for rebuilding the
World Trade Center, but its decision was overturned by Gov. George Pataki, who chose a scheme by Daniel Libeskind.
And even his unglamorous projects somehow turned glamorous, often with the help of his sunfilled courtyards.
Rafael Vinoly was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, on June 1, 1944. He studied architecture and opened a firm in Argentina that went on to produce buildings throughout South America.
Argentina was a dangerous place for intellectuals under the military regime that seized power in 1976. In 1978, Vinoly obtained a teaching position at Harvard University and was able to flee Argentina with his family. In 1979, the family settled in New York, where Vinoly founded his own firm in 1983.