(1915-2004)

True to the sobriety of the most radical modern orthodoxy spearheaded by Walter Gropius or Marcel Breuer and firmly immune to the fanciful forms of postmodernity, Edward Larrabee Barnes passed away in California at the age of 89. Student of English Philology, History of Art and a History of Architecture graduate, Barnes was a versatile man of letters before becoming an architect. His professional career began in the postwar years, designing mass-produced dwelling prototypes for the industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss. When Washington stopped financing that initiative, the young Barnes moved to Manhattan, where he would establish an important architectural office whose activity spanned 45 years. Designer of skyscrapers, museums and houses, his most famous projects are the Haystack Mountain School in Maine (1962) – a village-like collection of houses joined by footbridges with views onto the ocean – and the Walker Art Center of Minneapolis (1971), recently enlarged by Herzog & de Meuron and still considered one of the most important museums in the United States.