“We regret the sad news of the death of the admired Uruguayan architect,” the architecture faculty of the University of the Republic tweeted from Montevideo. The municipal administration of the Uruguayan capital indicated that due to the global scope of Viñoly’s work, “the world loses a great creator and weigher of architecture.”
The acclaimed and sometimes controversial architect, born in Montevideo in 1944, leaves more than 600 works around the world ranging from hotels, concert halls, stadiums or airports, such as the Guadalajara terminal (Mexico), the new international airport terminal de Carrasco in his hometown, or the circular bridge over the Garzón lagoon, which connects the Uruguayan departments of Maldonado and Rocha.
With studies in New York, London, Los Angeles, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, Palo Alto, Manchester, Buenos Aires and Chicago, Viñoly was one of the internationally renowned architects that Uruguay has produced.
polemical works
But some of his works were not without controversy.
One of the latest is a 426-meter-tall, 85-story luxury residential building, 432 Park Avenue in Manhattan, one of the tallest residential buildings in the world, the subject of a lawsuit by its millionaire residents for loud noise and vibrations inside the apartments.
Its concave glass designs act as heat reflectors, strongly increasing temperatures.
In 2010, a person reported having suffered severe burns in the pool of the Vdara hotel in Las Vegas by what has been called a “death ray” caused by the glass of the building.
In London, the 20 Fenchurch Tower, better known as “Walkie Talkie”, which earned the dubious honor of being described as the ugliest building in the United Kingdom, the “ray of death” came to melt cars parked in its surroundings.
In an interview with the Global Mansion publication, the architect said “he does not have a recognizable style” because when designing a building it is not about attracting attention but achieving effective functionality that takes into account “local problems, technology problems and costs”.
“In retrospect, after so many years, the most important thing is whether the solution to the problem was intelligent,” declared the architect, famous for wearing several pairs of glasses — often four — at the same time, alternately placed on his head or hanging of his neck.
The first major project that came out of his studio founded in 1983 in Manhattan was the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, completed in 1988 and a year later he won an international design competition for the Tokyo International Forum, concluded in 1996 and is considered one of the most important cultural centers of Japan.
After studying and graduating as an architect in Buenos Aires, he emigrated in 1978 with his family to the United States, where he gave talks at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. The following year he settled permanently in New York.
Member of the National Academy, of the American Institute of Architects and Medal of Honor from the New York Section, international member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Japanese Institute of Architects, Viñoly taught at various architecture schools around the world.
