[UPDATE, 4/28/17] A memorial service for friends and family will be held on Wednesday, May 10, 2017, at the The New Victory Theater (209 West 42nd Street) from 5:00 to 6:00pm.
Hugh Hardy, the New York architect who worked on almost every major theater in the city, has died today at age 84.
Throughout his career, he worked on venues like Radio City Music Hall, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and, with Eero Saarinen, the renovation of the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center.
Beyond the theater, Hardy was responsible for the revamp of the Rainbow Room and the Windows on the World restaurant in Minoru Yamasaki’s World Trade Center, two profoundly see-and-be-seen New York spaces. Besides those rooms, many office workers who eat lunch outdoors know his designs through Bryant Park’s kiosks, grill, and cafe, as well as the kiosks in Greeley and Herald squares. His third firm’s recent work includes BAM’s Theatre for a New Audience at Polonsky Shakespeare Center. That project, by H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, won an AIA New York merit award in 2015.
Hardy influenced architecture outside the city, too. In the 1970s, Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates (HHPA), the second firm he founded, completed a health center in the midcentury capitalist utopia of Columbus, Indiana.
Following his passing this morning, Hardy’s friends and colleagues took to Twitter with condolences and praise for his contributions to the profession:
Very sad news in the architecture world: Hugh Hardy, master architect of theaters, restorations, and ultimate New Yorker, has just died.
— Paul Goldberger (@paulgoldberger) March 17, 2017
The board and staff of MAS mourn the passing of our Director Emeritus, Hugh Hardy, a giant of architecture & tireless advocate for NYC.
— MASNYC (@MASNYC) March 17, 2017
Requiescat in pace
Hugh Gelston Hardy, FAIA
July 26, 1932 — March 17, 2017Mentor, friend, beloved architect and preservationist. pic.twitter.com/rIkhnjgBvQ
— Theodore Grunewald (@TedGrunewald) March 17, 2017
No one did more to save NYC theatres and by extension, whole neighborhoods, than Hugh Hardy. Sad news of his passing today. pic.twitter.com/IVyWiXf8co
— Safdie Architects (@SafdieArchs) March 17, 2017
Heartsick that Hugh Hardy has died. A gentleman and architect who loved New York and reshaped it time and again for the better.
— Michael Kimmelman (@kimmelman) March 17, 2017
We mourn the loss of Hugh Hardy. It’s impossible to imagine New York City without Hugh, a brilliant architect and civic visionary. pic.twitter.com/SP9VOOdh3l
— Urban Design Forum (@UDFNYC) March 17, 2017
