Pierre Vago

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Pierre Vago (August 30, 1910 in Budapest – February 1, 2002 in Noisy-sur-Ecole) was a notable French architect who worked on the Hansaviertel in Berlin. Known Internationally as the publisher of L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui and General Secretary of the UIA. Vago remained honorary president of the UIA until his death.

[edit] Life

The young frenchman, Vago, born in Budapest in 1910, studied at the Ecole Spéciale d'Architecture (ESA) in Paris. Because of his housing projects, factories, and the Central Banks of the French provinces of Tunesia and and Algeria, as well as his pilgrimage church of St. Pius in Lourdes, he received much attention in the postwar years. His role-model was undoubtedly Le Corbusier.

As publisher of the influential magazine, L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui (Today's Architecture) Pierre Vago became an internationally important architecture critic. Pierre Vago founded in 1948 the International Union of Architects (UIA), and also served as its General Secretary for many long years. His goal was to unite all the architects of the world in an umbrella organization of all the national architects associations. In 2005, the UIA is recognized in 95 countries and thus represents ca. 1.5 million architects. Under the direction of the UIA, East and West German architects were brought together already at the end of the 1950s. Vago was a proponent of Franco-German reconciliation politics.

The International Architecture Symposium "Mensch und Raum" (Man and Space) at the Vienna University of Technology (Technische Universität Wien) in 1984 received in international attention. Pierre Vago participated, among others: Justus Dahinden, Dennis Sharp, Bruno Zevi, Jorge Glusberg, Otto Kapfinger, Frei Otto, Paolo Soleri, Ernst Gisel, Ionel Schein.

Pierre Vago was an honorary member, for example, of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the German Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA), and the American Institute of Architects (AIA).

[edit] Publications (Selection)

Pierre Vago: l'Architecture d'aujourd'hui, revue internationale d'architecture contemporaine, Paris, 1971, ISBN B0000DWOHP
Gabriel Epstein, Pierre Vago, Klaus Müller-Rehm: Architektur-Experimente in Berlin und anderswo. Für Julius Posener, 1989, ISBN 3-924812-24-1
Pierre Vago: L'UIA, 1948-1998, Epure 1998, ISBN 2-907687-58-1
Pierre Vago: Pierre Vago, une vie intense, Aam 2000, ISBN 2-87143-110-8