The New York Times reports that Walter Pichler has died. The architect was 75.
Pichler, an Austrian architect, was a pioneer among that nation's post-war visionaries, a group that included architects Hans Hollein and Raimund Abraham—a trio whose work appeared in a 1967 exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art called "Visionary Architecture."
Like the work of his celebrated peers, Pichler's architecture had a sculptural quality to it. He may be more widely known for his art, which, conversely, had an architectural feel. The Times writes:
His architectural drawings were not just plans; they were also works of art in and of themselves. Other images—“dream drawings,” as he called them—were dark and psychologically loaded. His figures were often skeletal or robotic.
Pichler was born in Italy and had achieved fame for his work before moving to Burgenland, Austria, in the early 1970s. A great number of his subsequent works appear in and around Burgenland; much of the art he created, he made here, for himself.
The Times obit notes Pichler's reach, quoting both eminent art dealer Barbara Gladstone and Museum of Modern Art architecture and design curator Barry Bergdoll on the value of Pichler's work to their respective fields.
