Architect Charles Gwathmey dies at 71

NEW YORK, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Charles Gwathmey, an architect in the High Modernist style, died Monday in New York of esophageal cancer, his stepson, Eric Steel, said. He was 71.

The New York Times reported Gwathmey's designs were bold and geometric, but not spare.

Gwathmey, who founded Gwathmey Siegel and Associates with partner Robert Siegel in 1968, designed homes for celebrities such as Steven Speilberg and Jerry Seinfeld. His most recent achievements included his 1992 addition to Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The newspaper reported critics at times disapproved of Gwathney's buildings as not fitting in well with their surroundings. However, Peter Eisenman, an architect and theorist, who, along with Gwathmey was once part of a group of celebrated young architects known as the New York Five, said Gwathmey "sublimated his ego and produced sophisticated solutions to plan and circulation problems."

Gwathmey was born June 19, 1938, in Charlotte, N.C. He received a master's degree in architecture from Yale University in 1962. He taught over the years at architecture schools including those at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia.

Gwathmey is survived by his wife, Bette-Ann Gwathmey, his stepson, Eric Steel, and a daughter, Annie Gwathmey of Los Angeles, from his first marriage to Emily Gwathmey, the Times said.