Architect Charles Gwathmey Dies at 71

Charles Gwathmey, a pioneer of modern architecture, died of cancer on Monday at the age of 71. Following in the footsteps of Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, Gwathmey practiced “high modernism,” designing an addition to the Guggenheim Museum and several private homes, including those of Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg. He was also known, as the aesthetics of modernism shifted over the years, to adhere firmly to his original principles. And Gwathmey led his life with the same meticulousness and eye for sleek modernism that he used on his buildings. He drove black sports cars from which he stripped the detailing, wore crisp suits from Savile Row, and even in the hospital during Gawthmey’s final days, “everything had to line up.”