Remembering Charles Gwathmey
East | Tuesday, August 4, 2009 | Matt Chaban.
Gwathmey
Charles Gwathmey passed away on Monday, but he was fondly remembered by his many colleagues, including Robert Siegel, Richard Meier, Michael Graves, and Peter Eisenman, in our obituary. We invite readers to share their own memories of this “fighter for modernism” in the comments section below. But please, be erudite, as Gwathmey would have had it no other way.
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I met both Charlie and Bob in the late 70′s when their office was still at Carnegie Hall Towers. At the time I was working with Jeff Osborne at Knoll quite a bit and he referred me to Charlie. I was a “photomuralist” at the time and was welcomed to their office like an old friend. Charlie made people feel that way and also feel like they can rise to any occasion as you know that he is as well.
I continued from that point working on all their black+white photomurals that they put into their interior spaces. He let me conceptualize all of them and gave me a sense of trust that is rare. From Montana lanscapes for a corporate headquarters in Raritan, NJ., to the side of a barn “dematerializing” a wall in Columbus, IN., to the Knoll factory workers for the showroom in Boston, to the curvilinear glass block wall from a dormitory project at Columbia University for the entrance lobby to their new offices at 475 10th Avenue. That image is still there today and stands as a testament to the loyalty and trust that only Charlie had.