Hasta La Ideas

You’ve heard that old adage that death comes in threes? Following the recent passing of legendary skyscraper architects Frank Williams and Bruce Graham, that’s apparently a continuing sad trend, with the news that Der Scutt has died. A protege of Paul Rudolph‘s, Scutt was responsible for designing such iconic New York buildings as Trump Tower and 100 United Nations Plaza Tower. Fred Bernstein pens this great obituary in the NY Times, explaining Scutt’s legacy. A full biography can be found on his firm’s site. Here’s a bit about his working on Trump Tower:

Mr. Scutt’s buildings, with their reflective facades, could be off-putting to some. But his son said that when Mr. Scutt began working on the Grand Hyatt, on East 42nd Street, “Trump had to do something brave and bold to resurrect the area.”

Indeed, in his 1987 book “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” [Donald Trump] remembered his first meeting with Mr. Scutt, at the restaurant Maxwell’s Plum, on a Friday night. There Mr. Trump described his plans to remake the “dingy” Commodore Hotel. “It was obvious to me that Der understood what I had in mind,” Mr. Trump wrote.

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