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Architect Cesar Pelli Dies at 92
Cesar Pelli, who designed landmarks on four continents yet downplayed his own style, died July 19 at age 92 in Argentina. The onetime dean of the Yale School of Architecture left behind a monumental body of work that ranged from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, to the World Financial Center (now Brookfield Place) in Manhattan, and Salesforce Tower in San Francisco.
Two months after accepting the Yale post in 1977, he won a commission to substantially redesign the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Although critics were lukewarm about the results, the project spurred Pelli to launch his own firm, later renamed Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects.
Pelli believed an architect’s role was to serve the building’s owner. “I believe it’s a mistake to have a style,” he said in a 2018 interview. “If you do your own thing, you are weakening the quality of the place where you build.”
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- ◦People
