Cesar Pelli

Argentine-born architect

• Born: October 12, 1926
• Birthplace: Tucumán, Argentina
• Died: July 19, 2019
• Place of death: New Haven, CT

Pelli was one of the world’s leading architects. His designs were innovative and influential, earning him several awards. In 2010, his Petronas Towers were the largest twin buildings in the world. Pelli also pioneered a method of collaboration on projects that changed the nature of architectural business.

Areas of achievement: Architecture

Early Life

Cesar Pelli was born October 12, 1926, in Tucumán, Argentina. His mother worked as a teacher, lecturer, and writer. Pelli was exposed to European and American cultural influences as well as Argentine culture while growing up. As a boy, he read that architects needed to be good at drawing and appreciate history; Pelli liked both, so he decided to pursue architecture as a career.

Pelli attended the National University of Tucumán, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in architecture in 1949. It was during this time that the modernist movement in architecture began. Modernism is defined by simple, cubic forms and relies on glass, steel, and concrete as building materials. Pelli married Diana Balmori, a landscape designer, in 1950. They later had two children, Denis and Rafael.

For the next two years, Pelli worked as the director of design for a government agency that built subsidized housing in Tucumán. He won a scholarship from the Institute of International Education in 1952 to study architecture in the United States. Pelli and his wife moved to Illinois, where he studied at the University of Illinois School of Design. He graduated with a master’s degree in architecture in 1954. After graduation, Pelli began his apprenticeship with the firm of Eero Saarinen. Saarinen, considered a master in architecture, had a great impact on Pelli. While working for Saarinen, Pelli was a project designer on the Trans World Airlines terminal building at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. In 1960, Pelli briefly taught architectural design at the National University of Tucumán in Argentina.

Life’s Work

Pelli returned to the United States and continued working for Saarinen until 1964. That year, he became a naturalized American citizen. He moved with his family to Los Angeles, where he became vice president and director of design at the firm of Daniel, Mann, Johnson, and Mendenhall. Pelli worked there until 1968, when he became a partner in the Gruen Associates firm. For two years he also was a visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Pelli worked for Gruen until 1976, after which he accepted the position as dean of Yale University’s School of Architecture.

When Pelli moved to New Haven, Connecticut, he also started his own design firm with two associates from Los Angeles. The small firm soon was hired to handle the expansion and remodeling of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Because Pelli’s firm was not equipped to handle a job of that size, he began what became a new mode of practice in architecture: collaboration. He hired a large New York firm to help with the production drawings, while Pelli’s firm handled the creative design aspects. His idea showed that a small firm could maintain creative control and still execute large national and international projects. Pelli retired from Yale University in 1984 but continued to lecture occasionally while working with his design firm, Pelli Clarke Pelli.

Pelli received the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal in 1995. Among his most famous buildings are the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which were completed in 1997. The two eighty-eight-story skyscrapers include a pyramidal pinnacle and spire. Their total height is 1,483 feet, which made them the world’s tallest buildings until 2004. A walkway connects the forty-first and forty-second floors of the two towers. In 2004, Pelli received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the design. Pelli designed a number of skyscrapers and found them fascinating. He was awarded Cemex’s Life and Work Award in 2006. In 2008, he received an honorary doctorate from Yale University. He also received several other honorary degrees and more than two hundred design awards. In 2012 he received the Konex de Brillante Award from the Konex Foundation. He and his firm were also involved in the design of the Landmark Tower in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, which was completed in 2013, and Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, California, which opened in early 2018 and became the tallest building in the city.

Pelli died at his home in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 19, 2019, at the age of ninety-two.

Significance

Pelli’s buildings changed the skylines of numerous cities throughout the world. In 1991, the American Institute of Architects named Pelli one of the ten most influential living American architects. He approached new designs without any preconceived ideas; each had its own context. He embraced new building and construction technology because it allowed him to design taller, more elegant buildings using thinner metal and glass.

Bibliography

Bernstein, Fred A., and Paul Goldberger. "Cesar Pelli, Designer of Iconic Buildings around the World, Dies at 92." The New York Times, 20 July 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/07/20/arts/cesar-pelli-dead.html. Accessed 5 Aug. 2019.

Crosbie, Michael. Cesar Pelli: Buildings and Projects 1988–1998. Birkhauser, 1998.

Dagit, Charles E., Jr. The Groundbreakers: Architects in American History—Their Places and Times. Transaction, 2015.

Gintoff, Vladimir. “Spotlight: César Pelli.” ArchDaily. ArchDaily, 12 October 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

Pelli, Cesar. “Cesar Pelli: Architecture Is a Complex Art.” Interview by Adriana Bianco. Americas, vol. 64, no.2, 2012, pp. 38+.

Pelli, Cesar. Observations for Young Architects. Monacelli, 1999.

Pelli, Cesar, and Michael Crosbie. Petronas Twin Towers: The Architecture of High Construction. Wiley, 2005.