Giorgio Cavaglieri, New York Preservationist, Dies at 96
Wagner International
Giorgio Cavaglieri, a founder of the architecture preservation movement in New York City, died on May 15 at his Central Park West apartment. Born in Venice in 1911, he graduated from the Politecnico di Milano in 1932 with a degree in engineering. After wartime service in Africa with the Italian army, he returned to Milan and worked for several architects in the neomodern style of the period.
But as a Jew, Cavaglieri saw little future in his homeland, so he emigrated to the United States in 1938. A letter of introduction to Rosario Candela landed him a job with the luxury apartment architect, where he worked until he was drafted into the American army. He won a Bronze Star for meritorious achievement as an architect creating barracks housing. Next he returned to New York City and established his own office specializing in renovating historic buildings using modern detailing and materials.
His redesign of the Renaissance-inspired lobby of the 1921 Fisk Building at 250 West 57th Street (Carrère and Hastings, and Shreve, Lamb & Blake) was praised at the time by critics like Lewis Mumford, who claimed that it had “a simplicity, a freshness, an elegance altogether lacking in the first effort.” However, later critics attacked Cavaglieri’s style of modernist renovation, like Robert Stern, who wrote in New York 1960 that the Fisk Building’s renovation “significantly compromised” it. Despite this criticism, Cavaglieri remained a committed preservationist and in 1963 was elected president of the Municipal Art Society, where he campaigned against a proposed cafe in Central Park and the demolition of Grand Central.
Cavaglieri’s best known design projects are the renovation of the Jefferson Market Library (1964) and the Astor Library (1967) into Joseph Papp’s new Public Theater. Cavaglieri’s family will announce a memorial service.
WILLIAM MENKING