Architect Hugh Stubbins Jr. dies at 94

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AFX) - Hugh Stubbins Jr., an architect whose Citigroup Center in Manhattan, with its sharply angled roof, is a major icon on the New York skyline, has died. He was 94.

Stubbins, who died Wednesday of pneumonia at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, also designed such noted buildings as Boston's Federal Reserve Bank; the Ronald Reagan President Library in Simi Valley, Calif.; and Congress Hall, now known as House of World Cultures, in Berlin.

The 59-story Citigroup (formerly Citicorp) Center, dedicated in 1977, broke with the "glass box" form of modern skyscraper with its roof, piercing the sky at a 45-degree angle.

It appears to sit on four huge columns -- not at the corners, but in the middle of each side of the building. Tucked in one corner is a church, also designed by Stubbins, that replaces one that was torn down to build the complex.

"By any standard the architect, Hugh Stubbins & Associates of Cambridge, Mass., has created one of New York's significant buildings," The New York Times wrote.

Appraising Stubbins' Federal Reserve building in Boston, the same Times critic, Paul Goldberger, declared it one of the best modern buildings in the city, "more dramatic and more elegant" than the Citicorp building.

With the Reagan Library, Stubbins drew upon California's traditional mission-style architecture. The House of World Cultures, opened in West Berlin in 1957 as a gift from the United States, features a futuristic flaring roof.

He also designed Landmark Tower in Yokohama, Japan's tallest building, and Veterans Stadium, the home of baseball's Philadelphia Phillies and football's Philadelphia Eagles which was torn down two years ago.

He often sketched his ideas on napkins, his son said.

"I remember seeing many napkins with the basic design of Citicorp on them, just in doodles," Hugh Stubbins III told The Boston Globe.

Among his honors was the Gold Medal for Excellence in Design from Tau Sigma Delta, the National Honorary Fraternity for Architecture and the Allied Arts.

Born in Birmingham, Ala., Stubbins graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology and received a master's in architecture from Harvard in 1935, where he later taught.