Art & Design | Ricardo Scofidio, Boldly Imaginative Architect, Is Dead at 89
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Ricardo Scofidio in 2007, several years after he and his wife, Elizabeth Diller, became the first architects to be awarded MacArthur “genius” grants. Credit… Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan, via Getty Images With Diller Scofidio + Renfro, he brought a conceptual-art sensibility to cultural landmarks like Lincoln Center and to innovative public spaces like Manhattan’s High Line.
Ricardo Scofidio in 2007, several years after he and his wife, Elizabeth Diller, became the first architects to be awarded MacArthur “genius” grants. Credit… Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan, via Getty Images
Published March 6, 2025 Updated March 7, 2025, 1:16 a.m. ET Ricardo Scofidio, who with his wife, Elizabeth Diller, brought a conceptual art sensibility to architecture while designing some of the world’s most innovative concert halls, museums, academic buildings and parks, including, with partners, the High Line in Manhattan, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 89.
His sons Gino and Ian Scofidio confirmed his death, in a hospital. They did not cite a specific cause.
Mr. Scofidio and Ms. Diller founded the firm now called Diller Scofidio + Renfro in New York in 1979. Operating out of a gritty East Village studio, they became known for their inventive ideas about how architecture could alternately challenge and enhance perceptions, and in 1999 they became the first architects to be awarded MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants.
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Mr. Scofidio and Ms. Diller in 2007. Their success came despite their tendency to treat a commission not as a chance to do a client’s bidding, but as an opportunity to question the client’s goals. Credit… Joe Fornabaio for The New York Times Twenty-five years later, the firm employed about 100 architects and often made the short list of candidates for the world’s most prestigious cultural and institutional commissions. Calm and soft-spoken, Mr. Scofidio maintained his focus on the details that could make or break a building.
“I’m always a little shocked when people try to make me realize we’re a big firm doing big projects,” he told Architectural Digest in 2019, “because that was not the goal.”
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