César Pelli is deceased | He designed Las Petronas, the towers …

César Pelli, architect of Tucuman, died this Friday at the age of 92, leaving in his past skyscrapers like the towers Petronas, Malaysia, with 452 meters; the YPF tower, in Puerto Madero, and the US Embbady in Tokyo, in addition to recognitions such as the gold medal of the American Institute of Architects.

Pelli studied architecture at the National University of Tucumán, where he graduated in 1948. He practiced his craft in Argentina until 1952, when he moved to the United States with his wife, the architect Diana Balmori. There, his children were born Denis in 1953 and Rafael in 1956, as well as those who lived between 1964 and 1976 in Los Angeles.

Pelli was a partner of Eero Saarinen's office and then of Gruen Associates. He was then Dean of the Yale University School of Architecture between 1977 and 1984 and lived in New Haven, Connecticut, where he directed the Pelli Clarke Pelli Studio.

Since its inception, the Pelli Clarke Pelli studio has started with the award-winning MoMA renovation project in New York, which has won numerous awards. It then gained momentum with the World Financial Center and the Winter Garden of Battery Park.

In 2006, he received the Life and Work Award, awarded by the Cemex Works Award. In 2012, the Konex Foundation awarded him the Brillante Konex Award as the most relevant figure in the Argentine visual arts of the decade, alongside visual artist León Ferrari.

His most famous work is the Petronas Towers, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which from 1998 to mid-2003, with 452 meters each, were the tallest buildings in the world. With 88 floors, mainly concrete, steel, aluminum and glbad (facade), they evoke traditional motifs of Islamic art respecting the Muslim heritage of Malaysia. The base originally had the shape of Solomon's star (eight-pointed star). Pelli used an Islamic geometric pattern on his plant, intertwining two squares, of decreasing size at the top, based on a very traditional motif of Islamic culture: at the eight points, he added projected lobes of strength with which a star at eight branches is obtained, including circles (and with it a twelve-pointed star) at each intersection. The construction of the towers began in 1992.

At the time of his Nuer, the architect was working on his latest project, the Civic Center of Tucumán, in Los Pocitos, Tafí Viejo, planned on a property of 17.5 hectares and distributed in seven buildings. In addition to concentrating the public administration in one place, the project has three amphitheatres, one that can accommodate 300 people and the other two 120, perfectly integrated with the surrounding landscape: the yungas of Tucuman. The development also includes an important landscaping chapter, which will seek to recover the indigenous flora of the Tucuman yungas, as well as their trees (tarcos, drunken sticks, aguaribay, tipas, among others). According to its promoters, the land presents a topography that will generate terraces and gardens at different levels, which will recover rainwater and the building.

Pelli was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in recognition of an important work of lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture.