(1929-2000)

John Hejduk was born the same year as Frank Gehry and had a similarly corpulent physiognomy as a shell for an irreverent talent, but unlike the author of the Bilbao Guggenheim, who is prolific as a builder, the New Yorker made the annals of architecture for iconoclasm and subversion in educational endeavors, carried out until only shortly before his death. The Cooper Union of New York was his base since 1964, when he was taken in as professor. He had previously taught in the University of Texas, where together with Colin Rowe, Bernard Hoesli and Rober Slutzky he had worked to rethink the didactic foundations of the discipline. With few built works to show for, his projects were presented in the MoMA exhibit Five Architects, in the company of Richard Meier, Charles Gwathmey, Michael Graves and Peter Eisenman. The Homel building and the Cooper Union complex restoration, both in New York City, along with three proposals in the Berlin IBA, preceded his commissions in Spain: the house for a stockbreeder in Cádiz, and the Parque de Belvís towers and the La Trisca civic center, both in Santiago, of which only the latter has been built.