The architect Charles Gwathmey has died

New York - American modernist architect Charles Gwathmey, a member of the famous group New York Five, died on Monday at the age of 71 in Manhattan. The architect's stepson Eric Steel stated that the cause of death was esophageal cancer.
      Charles Gwathmey was born on June 19, 1938, in Charlotte, North Carolina. He grew up in Charlotte and New York. He began studying architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and then transferred to Yale, where he earned a master's degree in 1962. After his studies, he spent two years traveling around Europe, where he was most interested in the architecture of Le Corbusier. Upon his return, he designed his parents' house in the Amagansett area of New York. With his admiration for modernist architecture, particularly for Le Corbusier, he joined the other four architects as the youngest member of the group known as The New York Five. In addition to Gwathmey, the group included architects Peter Eisenman (1932), Michael Graves (1934), John Hejduk (1929-2000), and Richard Meier (1934).
      Gwathmey earned a reputation primarily through his designs of family homes. Many wealthy clients, including Steven Spielberg, David Geffen, and Jerry Seinfeld, chose him for the design of their luxury residences, often repeatedly.
      The office Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, which Gwathmey founded with Robert Siegel in 1968, was one of the few architectural firms that managed to sustain itself with projects in the area of custom housing. The studio's first project was in 1969, an apartment for actress Faye Dunaway.
      Some of the most significant projects by the office Gwathmey Siegel & Associates include the International Center of Photography in Manhattan, the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, the expansion of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard, and the expansion of the Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan.
      Charles Gwathmey taught at a number of architecture schools, including the most prestigious ones (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cooper Union, and others).