GORDON BUNSHAFT FAIA (1909-1990)
Bunshaft was born in Buffalo NY to Russian Jewish immigrant
parents,and attended Lafayette High School. He received both
his undergraduate (1933) and his master's (1935) degrees
from MIT and studied in Europe on a Rotch Traveling
Scholarship 1935-1937. After his traveling scholarship,
Bunshaft worked briefly for
Edward Durell
Stone and industrial designer Raymond Loewy.
He
joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) in 1937 and
remained for more than 40 years, rising to partner. The long
list of his notable buildings includes Lever House in New
York, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale
University, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in
Washington DC, the LBJ
Presidential Library in Austin TX, and the 1956 Ford World
Headquarters in Dearborn MI (with Natalie de
Blois).
Bunshaft received the 1988 Pritzker Prize (he nominated
himself) and a Medal of Honor from AIA New York, among many
awards.
He received the Brunner Prize of the American Academy and
Institute of Arts and Letters in 1955, and its gold medal in
1984. He also received the American Institute of Architects
Twenty-five Year Award for Lever House, in 1980, and the
Pritzker Architecture Prize, in 1988. In 1958, he was
elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate
member, and became a full member in 1959. From 1963 to 1972,
he was a member of the Commission of Fine Arts in
Washington.
Bunshaft's archives are at the Architectural and Fine Arts
Library at Columbia University; his architectural drawings
remain with SOM.
In 1943, Bunshaft married Nina Wayler.
He designed only one house, below.
Bio adapted from Wikipedia.
1950 - The Manhattan House Apartment Building,
200 E 66th Street,
Manhattan NY. John
Johansen was one of the project architects. Sold to developers in 2005, renovation completed in early
2010's.
1963 - The Gordon and Nina Wayler
Bunshaft House, aka Travertine House,
84 Georgica Close
Road, East Hampton NY. Structural engineer, Paul
Weidlinger; mechanical engineers Syska & Hennessy; built by Clarke Smith; SOM did
the landscape design. 2300sf. Photos by Ezra Stoller. Featured as an
Architectural Record House of 1966 and an Architectural Record
Vacation House of 1970. The Bunshafts left the house to the Museum of Modern Art
which sold it in 1995 to Martha Stewart. Her extensive remodel designed by John
Pawson began then stalled and abandoned for years amid a neighbor
dispute. In 2004, she
transferred the property to her daughter, Alexis. Sold
to Donald and
Bonnie Maharam, who described the house as "decrepit
and largely beyond repair" and destroyed it in 2004.
However, when the house was destroyed, the extensive travertine was missing.
Rumor has it that Stewart or her daughter had removed it previously, but that has never
been confirmed.
