Rafael Viñoly, a Uruguayan architect whose portfolio includes London’s “Walkie-Talkie” building, died on Thursday. He was 78.
Roman Vinoly
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Roman Vinoly
Rafael Viñoly, a Uruguayan architect whose portfolio includes London’s “Walkie-Talkie” building, died on Thursday. He was 78.
Roman Vinoly
Rafael Viñoly, a Uruguayan-born architect whose award-winning modernist buildings bring dramatic beauty to skylines around the world, has passed away. He was 78.
Viñoly died of an aneurysm at New York’s Presbyterian Hospital in Lower Manhattan on Thursday, according to his company.
“I am saddened to announce that my father, founder and namesake of our firm Rafael Viñoly Architects, has passed away suddenly,” said his son and collaborator Román Viñoly wrote in a statement. “He was a visionary who will be remembered by all those with whom he touched lives through his work.”
His most recognizable works include the Tokyo International Forum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Carrasco Airport in Montevideo and 20 Fenchurch Street in London – better known as the “Walkie-Talkie” building. .
Viñoly, whose civic and cultural buildings are the backbone of his portfolio, is preoccupied with the practical use of his structures.
John Gravois, who writes for the magazine, said: “He has a professional passion for uncanny, worker-like challenges in designing complex institutional architecture: hospitals, Nanosystems Research Institute, Cancer Research Center. United Arab Emirates Nation in 2010. “His buildings often seem to be designed not for aerial photography but for use and experience — inside and out. And he demonstrates a habit of designing architectural structures. architecture respects its neighbours.”
However, some of his buildings have been criticized for being unfriendly.
Designed by Vinoly the infamous “Walkie-Talkie” tower in London’s financial district, a tuber-shaped building with a concave glass facade melt at least one nearby car with its reflection in 2013.
Viñoly later explained the design flaw was the result of a development process that he said left the architect aside.
“One problem in this town is that too many consulting firms and sub-consultants reduce the designer’s responsibility,” I said guard“to the point where you don’t even know where you are.”
Another Viñoly building, New York’s flimsy skyscraper, 432 Park Avenue – once the tallest residential building in the world at nearly 1,400 feet – has made headlines for what critics say seen as devastation on the Manhattan skyline. Residents of luxury apartments face a variety of construction and engineering problemsincluding leaky plumbing, squeaky walls and faulty elevators.
On the surface, the architect rejects the fame-seeking approach that he considers endemic to contemporary architects.
“I’m very concerned with ungodliness!” he said in a Q&A with urban in 2010. “If you remember, 10, 15 years ago, if you weren’t working in a museum, you weren’t an architect. With hospitals, that level of snobbery would never apply. use — nobody cares about that stuff.”
Gravois wrote in NationViñoly “doesn’t seem to shrink from being a larger-than-life personality, media-ready, or making prophetic statements.”
Born in 1944 in Montevideo, Uruguay, Viñoly became a founding partner of the renowned Argentina-based design studio Estudio de Arquitectura at the age of 20, according to his company biography. In 1978, Viñoly moved to the United States and served as a visiting lecturer at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, and settled in New York the following year. In 1983, Viñoly founded Rafael Viñoly Architects, a firm based in New York City with offices in London, Manchester, Abu Dhabi, Buenos Aires, Chicago and Palo Alto.
In addition to his son Román, he has wife Diana, stepchildren Nicolás and Lucas, and brother Daniel, his company said.
