(1908-2004)

The strong and corporate America of the Cold War period and of the technological and aerospatial deliria lost on 12 September one of its most significant builders. Abramovitz, whose professional career was linked to that of Wallace K. Harrison – first as an employer and later as associate of the powerful New York firm Harrison and Abramovitz –, was also the author of over three hundred buildings among which the Philharmonic Hall in New York’s Lincoln Center, later on repabtized Avery Fisher Hall. Civil and Military Engineer and professor at the Yale University School of Architecture, he was a methodic architect and a man committed to technological and building innovation. His accomplishments as businessman and as engineer have overshadowed his contributions to the history of architecture and have moderated his radical thinking. The absence of a defined style or a cultivated public image have contributed to his not being so often an object of study. Abramovitz passed away right when he was preparing the inauguration of the first retrospective exhibition on his work at Columbia University.