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Charles Gwathmey: An American Classic
Polo.com's interview with one of America's most-respected and influential architects—well known for his addition to and renovation of New York's Guggenheim Museum and for his homes for celebrities including Spielberg, Seinfeld and Geffen
By Evan McGlinn
To understand the pioneering philosophy underlying Charles Gwathmey's architecture, you need look no further than the location of his Manhattan offices.
You will not find his 80-member firm located in some glitzy skyscraper in midtown. Instead, Gwathmey and his partner, Robert Siegel, are content in their sprawling offices in an old warehouse located off the beaten path at the corner of Thirty-Sixth Street and Tenth Avenue, a bustling industrial area near the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel. "When we moved down here, it was right after they started construction on the convention center," Gwathmey says, "and there was nothing." Now, several other architectural firms have joined Gwathmey and his partner, setting up their offices in the building.
It's that sort of individualistic style that has made his architecture firm, Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, one of America's most respected. It has completed over 300 architectural projects since it began in 1968 and boasts a list of impressive clients from Steven Spielberg and David Geffen to computer tycoon Michael Dell. Best known for the renovation and addition to New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—the original structure was built by Frank Lloyd Wright—his firm has also completed the Convention Center in Disney World, Florida, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. world headquarters in Manhattan and a massive complex of buildings for Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore.
After attending the University of Pennsylvania, Gwathmey received his Master of Architecture degree in 1962 from Yale University, where he won both the William Wirt Winchester Fellowship as the outstanding graduate and a Fulbright Grant. In 1982, his firm received the American Institute of Architects' highest honor for "approaching every project with a fresh eye, a meticulous attention to detail, a keen appreciation for environmental and economic concerns...and a strong belief in collaborative effort."
Mr. Gwathmey sat down with Polo.com to talk about architecture, design and his reflections on one of his first architectural projects.
What inspired you to become an architect?
My exposure was always in two specific visual arts. My father was an artist, and my mother was a photographer. I spent my entire youth in a house in which there was both a studio and a darkroom that was used every day and every night by both parents. My father was a teacher at Cooper Union and he taught drawing to both artists and architects so they could learn the importance of hand-eye coordination. Ever since I was a little boy, he took me to museums every weekend. I think the most formative memory was when I was 11 and we lived in Paris for a year while he was on sabbatical. He made me go to practically every church, châteaux and museum in Europe. It was then that I realized that I loved the great combination of being able to conceive and draw. Architecture seemed very appropriate. I was also very facile with my hands and could make things from scratch. It just seemed very clear to me that I should be an architect.
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Photography credits: all courtesy of Charles Gwathmey
Copyright 2004 Ralph Lauren Media, LLC
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