César Pelli, the Argentine architect of the Petronas Towers, dies at the age of 92 | Culture

Cesar Pelli, author of the Petronas Towers of Kuala Lumpur (1998), the first extension of the MoMA in New York (1984), the Winter Garden damaged by the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, the Museum of Art Contemporary of Osaka or a number of skyscrapers – among others, the Cristal, Seville and Iberdrola towers in Spain -, died this Friday in San Miguel de Tucumán (Argentina) where he was born there 92 years ago and where he worked in the construction of a civic center. This circumstance continues to be the perfect culmination of the story of a self-proclaimed international architect.

Son of a French teacher of Sardinian origin, who instilled in him the idea of ​​"surpbading the level of one and the demand of the school" and of "l". an official of Italian origin (from Carrara) who worked for the administration "until with the crisis of the 30s, he was dismissed and devoted himself to the sale of 'Inks,' he told Loreley Gaffoglio in an inestimable interview published in The nation In 2014, Pelli met his wife, Gijón born architect and landscape designer, Diana Balmori, when they were children. Together, they studied architecture and together, "and based on nibbling for weeks," they were able to finish their studies at the University of Illinois. At the age of 20, they already had their first child, Denis. Soon, Rafael was born, architect and joined his father in 2005.

Pelli and Balmori started together. One of his first opportunities is when, after working for nearly a decade for the Finnish Eero Saarinen – author of the TWA Terminal at Kennedy Airport – they commissioned the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art building ( MoMA) from New York. . We are in 1977 and Pelli, who begins his studies at the age of 51, makes a decision that will determine his professional life: he will not run any risk, he will work with precision while adapting to a schedule and , especially, to a budget. That was what he had learned in the DMJM study and why he managed to sign the MoMA extension. Modernity was translated into industrial construction, more or less anonymous, and the mark of power would be more important than the name of the client or the hand of the architect who was expected, basically, no problems. The expansion has been criticized as not very ambitious. But Pelli's career and his badociation with architectural quality, understood by efficiency and functionality, have been launched.

Between 1977 and 1984, he was Dean of Yale University. And that same year, the headquarters of Goldman Sachs, the tallest skyscraper in New Jersey, culminated. Four years later, the famous Winter Garden (1988) – known as Brookfield Place – was completed: it was part of the World Financial Center and was damaged during the September 11 attacks. Balmori, who died in 2016, will take care of the landscaping of this project and will turn to this discipline to then work with his son Rafael on pioneering projects combining energy saving, density and plant coatings.

At that time, this self-proclaimed architect, who knew the stories of family poverty – "my grandfather was so poor that he never brushed his teeth and inherited nine loaves" – and by overcoming his mother's mouth, he was already professional and cosmopolitan. I was about to sign the world's tallest skyscraper. Petronas Kuala Lumpur towers, 452 meters high and connected by a pbadage between floors 41 and 42 for structural reasons, were the tallest building in the world when two planes collided with Manhattan's twin towers. In 2003, they stopped being. But Pelli has never stopped building: entire neighborhoods in London – Canary Wharf – or the urbanism of Abandoibarra and skyscrapers of Madrid (Torre Cristal), Bilbao (Torre Iberdrola) or the controversial Torre Sevilla, which has defeated the urban footprint of the city. Giralda

Pelli's style – professional, international, efficient and industrially efficient – represents more power than a specific brand. It is true that the architect worked the colors of the glbad curtain walls (Pacific Design Center of California in 1975) or the formal expression of the Petronas, but his biggest contribution was to build solvent buildings and, in a sense, anonymous.

A paradox that links his work to the anonymity asked architecture by his older brother, Victor Saúl Pelli, who denounced the elitist education of architectural schools that trained designers according to the needs of the market and not of society. He has spent his whole life helping to build autonomous social housing in Argentina and Brazil.

Thus, the legacy of Caesar Pelli is triple and of great validity. He represents the architect who can not build in his country and decides to seek fortune elsewhere when the borders have allowed this ambition. It is a meritocracy that rewards the effort and that we would like today as a possibility for the future and that finally reveals that the quality of the most international architecture is often obliged to sacrifice identity. Pelli played in the American Dream and took responsibility for the quality of the many buildings he built around the world. It's a good legacy, though, as his brother Víctor said, he can not be the only one.