Seattle native enterprise information and information – Structure & Engineering

May 12, 2021

The architect and entrepreneur Art Gensler has died

Gensler

Art Gensler, co-founder of San Francisco-based global architecture and planning firm Gensler, died on May 10 of an ongoing illness at home in Mill Valley, California. He was 85 years old.

In 1965, Art Gensler, his wife Drue, and James Follett founded M. Arthur Gensler Jr. & Associates, Inc. in a one-room office with just one draftsman and $ 200 in the bank. It focused on work that fell under the radar screen for many architects – space planning and interior design, the company said in a statement. Gensler created the interior design virtually as a new category for the architectural office and brought it to a new level of professionalism.

Under his leadership, the company pioneered the practice of interior design and played an important role in developing customer understanding of the value of the profession.

At the beginning of his career, the architect Gensler recognized the need for a new architectural discipline known as tenant development. Starting with the Alcoa building in San Francisco, the company developed the programming practices that it said set the framework for interior design projects in this profession.

Gensler projects in Seattle included the bourgeois South Lake Union Hotel, Pacific Place, the Da Li 222 building, and the Tableau NorthEdge.

Art Gensler resigned as CEO in 2005 and Chairman in 2010, but remained present in the company and looked after the next generation of executives.

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1935, Gensler graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art and Planning in 1958, Interior Design Association and professional member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He received the Design Futures Council Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. As a founding member of Interior Design Magazine’s Hall of Fame and recipient of the IIDA Star Award, he also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Ernst & Young LLP and the Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

In his later years, he was a trustee of the Buck Institute for Aging, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the California College of the Arts. Recently, Gensler and his family donated $ 10 million to Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.

He is survived by his sons David, Robert, Douglas and Kenneth and their families. His wife, Drucilla (Drue) Cortell Gensler, who was almost 60 years old, died before him.

Andy Cohen and Diane Hoskins are Co-CEOs of Gensler, which has around 5,200 employees and 50 locations in Asia, Europe, Australia, the Middle East and America.

Total sales in 2020 were $ 1.55 billion.