Acclaimed and sometimes controversial, world-renowned Uruguayan architect, Rafael Vinoly, has died. “On behalf of my family, my colleagues and our many partners around the world, I am saddened to announce that my father (…) passed away unexpectedly yesterday [Thursday], March 2, at age 78,” said said his son, Roman, on the website of the company he founded and which is headquartered in New York.
The architect born in Montevideo in 1944 leaves more than 600 works all over the world, hotels, concert halls, stadiums or airports, such as the terminal in Guadalajara (Mexico) or the circular bridge over the Garzon lagoon, in Uruguay. He had also designed the Kimmel Center concert hall in Philadelphia.
Rafael Vinoly “leaves a rich legacy of unique and timeless designs that have been expressed in some of the most recognizable and iconic buildings in the world”, added his son, who cites in particular the Cleveland Museum of Art, or the international airport from Carrasco to Montevideo. English football club Manchester City, for which he designed the “City Football Academy” training facility, paid tribute to him on Twitter.
An international career
At the age of twenty-five, Rafael Vinoly, whose childhood predestined him to music – his father directed the Opera del Sodre in Montevideo – obtained his degree in architecture in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From 1969 to 1974, the agency he founded with five colleagues became one of the most active in South America. The 1974 coup brought his firm to a halt.
The architect resumed his career in the United States in 1979, adding to the Latin charm of the qualities of a businessman who, from 1982, made him a respected New Yorker. He then built an efficient, eclectic agency, capable of working, like most large American firms, in all fields of architecture: cultural or railway buildings, courts of law and universities, convention centers.
However, his eclecticism, effective in the period of architectural abandonment which was characteristic of the end of the 20th century in the United States, did not bring him much fame. He is neither a theoretician, like Robert Venturi, nor an inventor of new forms, like Frank Gehry or Peter Eisenmann. But he masters the grand scale.
Lauréat du prix Benedict
While his compatriot Carlos Ott completed the Opéra-Bastille, Rafael Vinoly won the competition for the Tokyo International Forum, a gigantic building which he completed in 1997 and for which he won the Benedictus prize.
But some of his projects have been controversial. Such is the case with his 426-meter-tall, 85-story luxury residential building in Manhattan, “432 Park Avenue”, which is being sued by its millionaire residents due to noise and vibrations inside the apartments.
In London, the skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street, nicknamed the “Walkie-Talkie”, which rises in the City district, made headlines in 2013 because the reflection of the sun’s rays on its concave glass facade had damaged a Jaguar parked below.