March 21, 2017

Text: Ryan Waddoups

Hugh Hardy, Renowned NYC Architect and Hall of Fame Member, Dies at 84

Hugh Hardy, FAIA, prolific New York City architect and 1992 Interior Design Hall of Fame member, has died at 84.

Hardy was born on July 26, 1932, in Majorca, Spain. He attended Princeton University, his father’s alma mater, where he earned a Bachelor of Architecture in 1954 and a Master of Fine Arts in Architecture in 1956. He then began his five-decade career in architecture by founding Hugh Hardy & Associates in 1962. Five years later, he founded Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, with H3 Hardy Collaborative Architecture following in 2004.

Throughout his career, Hardy completed a multitude of celebrated projects that reshaped New York City’s cultural landscape. One of his first, the restoration of the Eero Saarinen–designed Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center, foreshadowed his numerous contributions to the city. These include the restorations of Radio City Music Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center, and the Windows on the World restaurant in the former World Trade Center.

His dramatic restorations of the New Victory and New Amsterdam theaters, among multiple others along 42nd Street, facilitated Theater Row’s resurgence as one of New York City’s premier cultural destinations.

Along with Hardy’s family and friends, the architecture and design community took to social media to express remembrance for Hardy and his impact on the profession:
 

 

 

 

We were deeply saddened to learn yesterday of the passing of Hugh Hardy, a Trustee of the Museum for nearly three decades and friend and colleague of Isamu Noguchi. He was a man of great vision and steadfast dedication, who lent the Museum the wisdom and thoughtfulness of more than fifty years as one of the nation’s leading architects and preservationists. We will miss the passion he brought to his work here, and his exuberant embrace of the Museum’s programs and exhibitions. Perhaps most of all, we will miss the personal warmth he shared with everyone. Our sincere condolences to his family. Read more about his life and work in today’s @nytimes: https://nyti.ms/2nBOg7M [Mr. Hardy looking for inspiration at an old stable in Long Island City in 2006. Photo: Ting-Li Wang/The New York Times] #HughHardy

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Read Hardy’s full obituary here >

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