Pelli, Cesar 1926-

Cesar Pelli
1926-

Architect

Recognition

Cesar Pelli was born in Argentina and received a degree in architecture in 1949 from Tucuman University. He emigrated to the United States in 1952 and earned a masters in architecture in 1954 from the University of Illinois. After becoming dean of the School of Architecture at Yale in 1977, he opened his own office, Cesar Pelli and Associates, in New Haven, Connecticut. Pelli won the AIA Gold Medal in 1995. At the time, he was praised for his ability to create commercial buildings "that speak with an urban and civilized voice."

Carnegie Hall Tower

Pelli entered the 1990s triumphantly. He already had a string of recent accomplishments, such as the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California, the World Financial Center on Wall Street in New York City, and the Norwest Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In September 1990 his Carnegie Hall Tower brought the architect to new heights. The structure, designed to house both offices and apartments, is a full block deep and sixty stories tall, yet it remains sleek at just fifty feet wide. Time correspondent Kurt Andersen wrote in September 1990 that this "slender, elegant slab is like a dancer among thugs." Pelli designed the tower to fit with its partner and next-door neighbor, Carnegie Hall. He echoed the century-old Roman brick and terra cotta in the tower's brick skin, in five shades of brown and amber, and extended Carnegie Hall's Beaux-Arts façade. Pelli reported in September 1990 that "constraints are not necessarily negative. They force you to try avenues you would have ignored."

Worldwide Creations

Like many other prominent architects, Pelli's work took him around the globe. He completed Canary Wharf Tower in London, England, in 1991; NTT Shinjuku Headquarters Building in Tokyo, Japan, in 1995; and a new passenger terminal at Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. His Petronas Towers in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia, were particularly noteworthy. The structure, at 1,483 feet, surpassed the Sears Tower in Chicago, Illinois, as the worlds tallest building. Its importance goes much deeper, however. Pelli placed the towers shoulder to shoulder, creating a focal point of the space in between. A bridge linking the towers at the forty-first and forty-second stories draws one's eyes to the void. Pelli's designs echoed Islamic design. The architect used intersecting squares to form an eight-pointed star and then added curved bays between the points to create a unique footprint for the building. Other projects of note include a 3.2 million-square-foot mass transit hub in Hong Kong. Pelli was chosen in the mid 1990s to design the complex to integrate the central subway station with a new air terminal. The first phase called for a 1,312-foot-tall office tower, a 689-foot-tall tower, and a four-story retail podium with a public roof garden. Subsequent phases called for a hotel and apartments. Also at the end of the 1990s, Pelli was chosen to lead a design team for new concert spaces at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, California.

Sources:

Kurt Andersen, "Big Yet Still Beautiful," Time, 136 (24 September 1990): 98-99.

"Briefs," Architectural Record, 183 (January 1995): 15.

Philip Jodidio, New Forms: Architecture in the 1990s (Köln & New York: Taschen, 1997), pp. 64, 66, 23.

"New Briefs," Architectural Record, 185 (May 1997): 58.

Clifford A. Pearson, "Other Than Their Status as the World's Tallest Buildings, What Else do Cesar Pelli's Petronas Towers Have Going for Them?" Architectural Record, 188 (January 1999): 92-101.

"Pelli's New Plan," Architectural Record, 187 (January 1999): 55.