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Legacy of Three Architects

Robert Campbell, Ricardo Scofidi and Graham Gund

By: - Jun 23, 2025

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Though not necessarily for their buildings, these three prominent architects leave legacies that will be cherished and remembered.

What is a legacy? A legacy reflects a person’s lasting impact and how they are remembered by future generations. It can take a number of forms: career accomplishments, financial assets, or inspiring characteristics. Architecture is the art and science of planning, designing, and constructing buildings and other structures. So, whether for the good, bad, or ugly, architects leave an enduring legacy. Over the past few months, three notable architects have passed, and they left our shared built environment an impressive inheritance. Interestingly, each of their bequests may differ from what might be expected based on an initial look at their professional careers.

For over four decades, Pulitzer Prize-winning architectural critic Robert Campbell (1937-2025) was a fixture at the Boston Globe. He majored in English at Harvard University, received a Master’s in Journalism from Columbia, and a few years later obtained his Master’s in Architecture from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard. As a critic, he was known for his use of plain language; architectural jargon was anathema to him. One of his best pieces was his Globe essay on Cambridge’s Harvard Square. To his credit, he was often critical of Harvard University’s approach to planning and expansion.

Over the years, how a building fit into its surroundings came to matter the most to Campbell. He felt strongly that a city was best judged by its livable spaces. To him, “Good urban design is based on the essential truth that cities are made of streets, not of isolated buildings surrounded by empty air.”

Though Campbell strove to be fair in his architectural criticism, his focus could be limited. He often evaluated architecture with little or no acknowledgment of the valuable contributions of landscape architects, urban designers, planners, and public artists. That said, a wonderful testament to Campbell’s tenure was his collaboration with architectural photographer Peter Vanderwarker, which resulted in a series of photo articles and a book, Cityscapes Boston, created between 1982 and 2005.

Campbell’s critical mojo diminished in the 21st century, particularly regarding the overbuilding of incongruous towers in the city and the urban planning challenges in South Boston’s Seaport District. Another of his unfortunate legacies: he was the “only” serious architectural critic at the Boston Globe. This meant that, for decades, different perspectives and younger voices were shut out.

MacArthur Foundation Genius Award winner Ricardo Scofidio (1935-1925) built his first major permanent building in 2006, Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). He was 70 at the time. Born to a Black jazz musician who considered himself Italian, Scofidio was educated at the Cooper Union School of Architecture and Columbia University. He began teaching at Cooper Union in 1965.

Similar to the provocatively quirky graphic novel architect character, Asterios Polyp, for most of his career Scofidio was a long-time academic architecture teacher, a paper architect. He was more of an aesthete and conceptual artist than a bricks-and-mortar practitioner. Founded in 1981 by Scofidio and his wife, Elizabeth Diller, the practice was called Diller Scofidio + Renfro. It focused on art exhibit participation rather than architectural competitions. In its early years, the firm was best known for designing theater sets and dance backdrops as well as installation or conceptual artwork.

Prior to the ICA, they were known for erecting a temporary, made-of-steam Blur Building at the 2002 Swiss National Exposition. The gaseous creation was conceived as a satiric response to the over-saturation of visual media in expositions whose structures had become dominated by the use of state-of-the-art, immersive, digital technologies. What really put Scofidio and his wife on the map was their design for the ICA; the cantilevered structure became iconic. The firm received scores of prestigious and international commissions after that. One of its highest-profile projects: The High Line, the elevated, landscaped rail trail on New York City’s West Side greatly magnified the firm’s presence. The High Line seems to evoke a smile whenever it is mentioned.

Other Diller Scofidio + Renfro projects included work for the V&A Museum in London, a renovation of New York’s Lincoln Center public spaces, the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University, The Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts at Brown University, The Juilliard School, Alice Tully Hall, The Broad Art Museum, The United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum, plus projects in Italy, France, China, Russia, and Qatar. Successful or not, all of the firm’s projects attempt to proffer design flair and a creative spark. In the last quarter century, DS+R has grown to be one of the 50 largest architectural firms in the United States. Yet Scofidio will inevitably be best recognized for NYC’s The High Line.

Architect Graham Gund (1940-2025) was the scion of one of the wealthiest families in the United States. His father, a prominent philanthropist, George Gund II, was a major  investor in real estate, oil, and banking. Acting as a property developer early in his career, Graham drew on that wealth to build a unique architectural practice. Going against the period’s preference at the time for total building demolition, Gund bought distressed properties around Boston and would restore and rehabilitate them. One of his first selections was an underused courthouse in East Cambridge that had been designed in 1814 by the preeminent  Boston architect Charles Bulfinch. In 1972, Gund gracefully turned the building into a complex of arts spaces and offices that included his own studio. In 1983, a similar project came along on Beacon Street in Boston’s Back Bay: he restored and carefully added to a fire-ravaged church, reconfiguring it as a condo complex. Gund prided himself on being mindful of balancing the old with the new, dovetailing preservation with present needs.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Graham attended Kenyon College. He then attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), receiving two Master’s degrees from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. His firm’s prominent buildings can be found in institutional, educational, or cultural settings. Notably, the firm designed the strikingly stepped shape of the Regency Hyatt Hotel in Cambridge along the Charles River, Boston’s Art Deco revival on 75 State Street, and several postmodern projects for the Disney Company in both Florida and France.

Along with his architectural practice, Gund was also a major contemporary art collector and, for several years, was listed as one of the top collectors in the US. He and his wife Ann generously donated pieces of art and strategic funding to many institutions. Gund served on several prominent cultural boards in Boston and elsewhere. He also endowed an Executive Director position at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which is named after him and his wife. Gund Gallery is a prominent MFA exhibition space. Pieces from his collection have been donated to a number of museums, with a focus on Kenyon College and the Boston MFA.

Without denigrating his architectural work, Graham Gund’s legacy may well be his largesse to arts institutions, particularly sharing his superb contemporary art collection.

Though not necessarily for their buildings, these three prominent architects leave legacies that will be cherished and remembered.

Reposted courtesy of Boston's Arts Fuse.