1933-2010

The Austrian architect Raimund Abraham, who would later take on the American nationality, died in Los Angeles at the age of 76. Author of a small number of built projects, among which the most noteworthy is the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York (2002) – a slim tower of 24 stories, 83 meters in height and only 7.4 meters wide –, his career was devoted essentially to theory and teaching, at the Cooper Union and at the Pratt Institute in New York since 1971. Abraham was the author of inspired utopian projects which were displayed at institutions like the MoMA in New York, and in which he reflected his specific view of the discipline, deeply-rooted in modernity but endowed with a certain timelessness, qualities that can also be found in his works: the Pless House in Vienna (1964), a low-income housing development in Providence, Rhode Island (1969), or the residential and commercial building on the Kochstrasse of Berlin (1985) are a few examples. Some of his most recent projects are the Jing Ya Ocean Entertainment Center in Beijing, and the residence for musicians in Hombroich, Germany, both under construction.