Rafael Viñoly Beceiro | |
|---|---|
 Rafael Viñoly | |
| Born | (1944-06-01)1 June 1944 Montevideo, Uruguay |
| Died | 2 March 2023(2023-03-02) (aged 78) New York City, New York, United States |
| Alma mater | University of Buenos Aires |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Awards | International Fellow, The Royal Institute of British Architects (2007), Medal of Honor, American Institute of Architects, New York Chapter (1995), National Academician, The National Academy (1994) |
| Practice | Rafael Viñoly Architects PC |
| Buildings | Brooklyn Children's Museum Tokyo International Forum The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Cleveland Museum of Art David L. Lawrence Convention Center Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Campus Bronx County Hall of Justice Carrasco International Airport 432 Park Avenue 20 Fenchurch Street NEMA (Chicago) |
| Website | https://www.vinoly.com/ |
Rafael Viñoly Beceiro (1 June 1944 – 2 March 2023) was an Uruguayan-born architect based in New York.[1] He was the principal of Rafael Viñoly Architects, which he founded in 1983. The firm has offices in New York City,Palo Alto, London,Manchester,Abu Dhabi, andBuenos Aires.[2] Viñoly designedlandmark buildings internationally.
Viñoly rose to international prominence with hisTokyo International Forum. Reviewing theMuseum of Modern Art's exhibition of models and drawings for the building while it was still under construction, the thenNew York Times architecture criticHerbert Muschamp hailed Viñoly's design as "a monument to the idea of openness" that "revives faith in architecture as an instrument of intellectual clarity".[3] At the same time, some of his works have been widely panned, including one of his high-profile designs, the so-called "Walkie-Talkie," which detractors dubbed the "Walkie Scorchy." It was named this after it focused light from the sun to a point and melted peoples' cars on August 30, 2013.[4]
Viñoly was born inMontevideo,Uruguay, on 1 June 1944,[5] toRomán Viñoly Barreto, a film and theater director, and Maria Beceiro, a math teacher. "It was a cultivated household where the architecture of Le Corbusier, the art of translation, or the conducting of Arturo Toscanini might form part of the table talk," wrote Louis Jebb, inThe Art Newspaper. "The family moved to Buenos Aires when Rafael was five years old, after his father was invited to the city to direct Wagner's music dramaDie Walküre at the city's Teatro Colón.[6] Viñoly attended theUniversity of Buenos Aires, receiving a Diploma in Architecture (1968) and a Master of Architecture (1969) from theFaculty of Architecture and Urbanism.
In 1964, he formed an architectural firm inBuenos Aires with six associates (Flora Manteola, Ignacio Petchersky, Javier Sánchez Gómez, Josefina Santos, and Justo Solsona).[7] This practice, which came to be known as M/SG/S/S/S, or MSGSSS, would go on to become one of the largest architectural practices in South America, completing many significant commissions in a very short time.
In 1978, Viñoly and his family relocated to the United States. For a brief period, he served as a guest lecturer at theHarvard Graduate School of Design. In 1979, he settled permanently in New York City where, in 1983, he founded the firm Rafael Viñoly Architects PC. His first major project in New York was theJohn Jay College of Criminal Justice, completed in 1988. In 1989, he won an international competition to design theTokyo International Forum, which was completed in 1996. His firm's design was one of the finalists in theWorld Trade Center design competition.[8]
During the course of his 40-plus year career, Viñoly practiced in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.[9]
Viñoly was a Fellow of theAmerican Institute of Architects, an International Fellow of theRoyal Institute of British Architects, and a member of theJapan Institute of Architects and the Argentinian Sociedad Central de Arquitectos.[10]
Viñoly earned a reputation as "a serene functionalist and a master of institutional design", as an unbylined article inMetropolis put it, noting that "schools, civic buildings,convention centers, and the like have long been the mainstay of Viñoly's practice." "I'm very interested in unglamorousness!" he said, in the same article. About the human use of buildings, as opposed to architecture as monumental sculpture, he said "People don't understand how important this kind of thing is. If you remember, 10, 15 years ago, if you weren't working on a museum you weren't an architect. With hospitals, that level of snobbism would never have been applicable—nobody gives a royal screw about that stuff".[11] John Gravois, writing in the UAENational News, applauded Viñoly's "affinity for the nerdy, workmanlike challenges of designing complex institutional architecture: hospitals, ananosystems institute, a cancer research center. His buildings often seem designed not to be photographed from the air but to be used and experienced – from both the inside and out. And he displays the distinctly unstar-like habit of designing structures that respect their neighbors." As well, Gravois observed, he deplores "the insidiousness of contemporary architectural culture", singling out for criticism buildings "that tend to do only one thing, which is to create the sense of fame".[12]
Viñoly was married to the interior designer Diana Viñoly, whose aesthetic sensibility he once described as "mixed and unorthodox but never busy. There is a narrative to the objects she selects and each house is like a living thing. Nothing's ever composed, static, or finished. ... How she does it I don't know."[13]
Their son, Román Viñoly, is the director of Rafael Viñoly Architects. Viñoly also had two stepsons.[14]
The family lived in multiple locations:Tribeca, New York;Water Mill, Long Island[15] (where Viñoly built a piano house for his collection of nineconcert grand pianos); and London.[16]
He also "remained connected to his home country, spending summers in Montevideo, and designing there as well," wrote Elizabeth Fazzare, in an obituary forArchitectural Digest. "One of his most handsome recent projects is theLaguna Garzón Bridge, a circular road deck and pedestrian walkway whose design allows an eco-friendly crossing over the environmentally sensitive 4,448-acre lagoon on the nation's coast."[17]
Viñoly died from ananeurysm in New York City on 2 March 2023. He was 78.[18][19][5]
New York magazine'sCurbed site remembered Viñoly in its obituary as "prolific and polarizing", the quintessential New York architect, committed to the "'relatively small, rocky island,' as he once called it, 'with this urban experiment, which is so unique and irreproducible.'"[20] Noting the "astonishing" number of major projects he "left scattered across that island and its adjacent territories", most memorably the controversial supertall, super-skinny Midtown condo building (its width-to-height ratio is 1:16)[21] at 432 Park Avenue, the design critic Ian Volner observed, "Anyone so frantically prolific was bound to run into the clothesline of public opinion at some point." Ticking off Viñoly's most problem-plagued buildings—his 20Fenchurch Street tower in London and hisVdara resort complex in Las Vegas, whose glazedfaçades turned reflected sunlight into a blistering "death ray"—Volner suggested that his "attraction to ideas like transparency and simplicity trumped other, more quotidian considerations". Nonetheless, he applauded the architect's "commitment to making a more beautiful, more functional New York," singling out the elegant front of his athletics facility for Lehman College ("a nautiluslike curl of steel and glass") and his Spitzer School of Architecture at City College ("crisp and modest and clear") as exemplars of his sleek,modernist aesthetic.
Fred A. Bernstein, writing inThe New York Times, noted Viñoly's avoidance of a "signature style" beyond his allegiance to modernism and his "penchant for enclosing large spaces under glass, creating luminous interiors".[22] In anotherTimes article, the architectDavid Rockwell, who worked with him on several projects, most notably on a proposal for therebuilding of the World Trade Center, recalled the team's vision of the twin towers reborn as a structure that spiraled defiantly skyward, "a filigreed weave of steel and air [that] would transform the center for trade to one of civics and culture"—a testimonial, Rockwell recalled, to "Rafael's love and belief in the power of beauty and culture."[23]
By contrast, Louis Jebb, writing inThe Art Newspaper, focused on Viñoly's refusal to dismiss "nerdy", unglamorous projects as beneath him. "In an era when every 'starchitect' worth the name was chasing glamorous museum commissions, Viñoly was just as happy to be recognized for his work with laboratories, hospitals and universities," wrote Jebb. "The architects he most admired included, historically,Andrea Palladio, and in the modern eraOscar Niemeyer, creator ofBrasília, and the minimalist masterMies van der Rohe, whoseSeagram Building (completed 1958) was Viñoly's favorite in New York. But the forebear whose buildings appeared to have moved him the most was the Philadelphian magusLouis Kahn":[24]
In a 2021 interview [...] Viñoly spoke about Kahn's celebratedSalk Institute building in La Jolla, California (1962-65), founded byJonas Salk, the celebrated developer of a successful polio vaccine. First, Viñoly noted, the Salk Institute is a great laboratory—one where ground-breaking research in molecular biology is still done 60 years on. The acid functional test. But, at the end, he said, "it does one thing. You walk [between the two embracing wings] overlooking the ocean. All of a sudden, you feel you are good. You feel somehow that something has touched you that has changed the plane of the experience. Being elevated. It's like late Rembrandt."
Beyond his buildings, Viñoly's legacy in the field, according to the Uruguayan-American architect Amir Kripper, includes paving the way "for architects coming to the U.S. from South America and getting major projects and recognition."[25]
In anArchitect's Newspaper article headlined "Rafael Viñoly, who died in March, remains an inspiration to Latino/a architects in the United States," Kripper recalled "being mesmerized," as an undergraduate at the School of Architecture at Universidad de la República Uruguay, by photos of Viñoly's Tokyo International Forum.[26] The Uruguayan architect "immediately received the kind of attention normally reserved for our soccer players who emigrated to Europe to play in the English Premier, Spanish, or Italian Leagues," he wrote. Later, Kripper worked with Rodolfo Machado andJorge Silvetti (former classmates of Viñoly's) at Machado and Silvetti Associates (nowMachado Silvetti) in Boston. "Our shared connection with Viñoly was an additional, beneficial layer to our rapport, and once again I found myself inspired by the possibilities of stepping beyond cultural background, country of birth, and language, solely based on the work," wrote Kripper. He would go on to found Kripper Studio, a minority-owned architecture firm in Boston. "Viñoly was a bridge and an open door to the fact that ... a person with a clearly different name, with an accent included, could become an architect, an entrepreneur, a businessperson, and a founder of a company in the United States."
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Major works by Viñoly include theStavros Niarchos Foundation-David Rockefeller River Campus at Rockefeller University,432 Park Avenue in Manhattan,20 Fenchurch Street in London, theCurve Theatre Leicester, andFirstsite art gallery in Colchester, Essex.
20 Fenchurch Street in London won the 2015Carbuncle Cup for its ugliness.[27]
Two of the skyscrapers designed by Viñoly, theVdara in Las Vegas and20 Fenchurch Street in London, have experienced sun reflectivity problems as a result of their concave curved glass exteriors, which act as cylindrical and spherical reflectors, respectively. In 2010, theLas Vegas Review-Journal reported that sunlight reflecting off the Vdara's south-facing tower could make swimmers in the hotel pool uncomfortably warm and had been known to melt plastic cups and shopping bags; employees of the hotel referred to the phenomenon as the "Vdara death ray".[28] In London, sunlight reflecting off 20 Fenchurch Street during the summer of 2013 melted parts on a parkedJaguar and scorched the carpet of a nearby barber shop.[29]
432 Park Avenue has been the subject of numerous lawsuits and complaints regarding flooding, electrical problems, and excess building sway.[30]
A serious amateur pianist, Viñoly collaborated with piano builderChris Maene on a new concert grand piano design with a curved ergonomic keyboard that could facilitate easier access to the lowest and highest notes simultaneously.[31][32]
A foot longer than a typical concert grand and hosting no crossed strings, the Maene-Viñoly piano was completed in 2022 and premiered at theVerbier Festival played byKirill Gerstein.[33] In the months after Viñoly's death, the instrument was hosted at thePhiladelphia Orchestra[34] and featured at aCarnegie Hall concert in November of 2023 where it was played byJonathan Biss.[31]
Notes
Bibliography
