Rafael Viñoly

This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Viñoly and the second or maternal family name is Beceiro.
Rafael Viñoly Beceiro

Rafael Viñoly
Born 1944
Montevideo, Uruguay
Occupation Architect
Awards International Fellow, The Royal Institute of British Architects (2007), Medal of Honor, American Institute of Architects, New York Chapter (1995), National Academician, The National Academy (1994)
Practice Rafael Viñoly Architects PC
Buildings Brooklyn Children's Museum
Tokyo International Forum
The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts
David L. Lawrence Convention Center
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Farm Research Campus
Bronx County Hall of Justice
Carrasco International Airport
Interior of Tokyo International Forum
David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh

Rafael Viñoly Beceiro (born 1944) is an Uruguayan architect.[1]

Life and career

Viñoly was born in Montevideo, Uruguay to Román Viñoly Barreto (a film and theater director) and Maria Beceiro (a mathematics teacher). He attended the University of Buenos Aires, receiving a Diploma in Architecture in 1968 and a Master of Architecture from the School of Architecture and Urbanism in 1969.

In 1964, he formed the "Manteola-Petchersky-Sanchez Gomez-Santos-Solsona-Viñoly" Estudio de Arquitectura (architectural firm) with six associates. This practice would eventually become one of the largest architectural practices in South America, completing many significant commissions in a very short time.

In 1978 Viñoly and his family relocated to the United States. For a brief period he served as a guest lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, settling permanently in New York City in 1979. He founded the firm Rafael Viñoly Architects PC in 1983. His first major project in New York was the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which was completed in 1988. In 1989, he won an international competition to design the Tokyo International Forum. Completed in 1996, many people consider this building to be the most important cultural complex in Japan. His firm's design was one of the finalists in the World Trade Center design competition (see THINK Team).

During the course of his forty-plus year career, Viñoly has practiced in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Viñoly is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, an International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and a member of the Japan Institute of Architects as well as the Sociedad Central de Arquitectos.

Honors and awards


Buildings

Completed

Jongno Tower in Seoul
Institute for Regeneration Medicine Building, University of California San Francisco

In progress

Criticism

Sun Glare

Two of the skyscrapers designed by Viñoly, the Vdara in Las Vegas and 20 Fenchurch Street in London, have experienced unusual sun reflectivity problems due to their concave curved glass exteriors acting as respectively cylindrical and spherical reflectors for sunlight. In 2010, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported that sunlight reflected off the Vdara's south-facing tower could make swimmers in the hotel pool uncomfortably warm, as well as melting plastic cups and shopping bags; employees of the hotel referred to the phenomenon as the "Vdara death ray".[5] During an unusually warm 2013 summer in London, sunlight reflecting off 20 Fenchurch Street melted parts on a parked automobile as well as scorching the carpet of a nearby barber shop.[6]

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

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