Photo courtesy IBI Group Gruzen Samton Jordan Gruzen in 2010.  On Tuesday, January 27, 2015, Jordan L. Gruzen, FAIA, died in New York City after a brief bout with bladder cancer. He was 80 years old. Gruzen, along with his long-time colleague and partner Peter Samton, designed schools, universities, housing complexes, and civic and religious buildings that staunchly upheld the principles of modernist architecture with a well-tailored, straightforward use of materials. Their firm, named IBI Group-Gruzen Samton following a merger in 2009, has imparted its stamp on New York and the surrounding metropolitan area over more than four decades.

Photo © Aaron Sosa Ricardo Porro in Havana, Cuba, 2007. Cuban architect Ricardo Porro died December 25 of heart failure in Paris. He was the leading creator of the most outstanding and controversial architectural achievement of the Cuban Revolution, the Escuelas Nacionales de Arte. He was 89. Related links Letter from Havana Ricardo Porro Hidalgo was born in 1925 in Camagüey, Cuba. As a young man he moved to the capitol where he studied architecture at the Universidad de la Habana. There he became acquainted with Fidel Castro whose best friend from law school was the brother of Porro’s fiancée Elena

Paul Katz, 57, President of Kohn Pedersen Fox, who led the firm’s growth as a global powerhouse in the design of large, mixed-use complexes, died unexpectedly last week. Katz, known for his extremely quick mind and dry wit, was a passionate advocate for the impact that good architecture and innovative planning could have on the world’s rapidly evolving cities. Gene Kohn, a founding partner, posted this announcement.

When this magazine declared the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis “America’s leading museum of design” in 1990 [RECORD, March 1990, pages 45-47], it was paying tribute to Mildred Friedman, who died on September 3, at 85, in New York City. Photo courtesy Martin Friedman A portrait of the young Mildred Friedman. Beginning in 1969, Mildred—who went by Mickey—had been the museum’s go-to-person for anything and everything relating to design. She was best known for curating a series of prescient exhibitions on architecture and design while editing the Walker’s incisive and influential Design Quarterly. At the same time, she presided over

Designed by Coyula and other colleagues, El Parque de los Mártires Universitarios, completed in 1967, stands at a major intersection down the hill from the University of Havana's steps, where it remains one of the city's most powerful monuments to the revolution. The celebrated Cuban architect and urban planner Mario Coyula Cowley died in Havana on July 7, after a long battle with cancer. He was 79 years old. During his career Coyula was director of the School of Architecture at the Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverria (ISPJAE), head of the Group for the Integral Development of the Capital,

Fred Schwartz, visiting his 9/11 memorial in New Jersey in June 2011. Frederic Schwartz, who died on April 28 after struggling with cancer, wasn’t so much an architect as a public citizen who used architecture as a tool to improve lives. Other tools included empathy and patience. His best-known project in New York was the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, a project he inherited from his former employers, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, after public officials tinkered with their design so many times they​ felt unable to continue. Schwartz picked up where they left off, focusing not so much on

Photo © Flickr user Maurizio Mucciola The former Pepsi-Cola headquarters on New York's Park Avenue. Pioneering architect Natalie de Blois died on July 22 at 92. As an associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in the 1960s, de Blois helped design the Equitable Building in Chicago and New York's Lever House and the former Pepsi-Cola headquarters on Park Avenue. In the third edition of the AIA Guide to New York City, the Pepsi-Cola building is described as such: "An understated elegance that bows to the scale of its Park Avenue neighbors rather than advertising itself as the newest (of its

Photo © Agnete Schlichtkrull Henning Larsen Renowned Danish architect Henning Larsen, long recognized as a master of light, died at his home in Copenhagen on June 22, 2013, at the age of 87. Poignantly, his death occurred on the summer solstice, a day of celebration of natural light in the Nordic countries. The partners of Henning Larsen Architects made the announcement via the firm’s website, with the declaration that “the funeral will take place in silence.” Photo © Rigmor Mydtskov Henning Larsen The silence left by the absence of the architect resounds, however, with the built, educational, and cultural accomplishments of

The U.S.-born, London-based architect pursued a contextual modernism that smartly bridged different eras. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (with SMBW), Richmond, Virginia, 2010 Rick Mather’s death on April 20 from mesothelioma (caused by exposure to asbestos) was especially unexpected because, although approaching his 76th birthday, he always had a youthful air about him. Born in Portland, Oregon, a distant descendant of Puritan minister Cotton Mather of Salem Witch Trials notoriety, he moved to London in 1963 to study urban design and stayed. Having a strong interest in history, he found himself attracted to studying and working in the older European