ARCHITECTURAL WORLD

Architecture firm, France and West Africa The Bureaux d’Etudes Henri Chomette were architectural firms created in 1949 by Henri Chomette, a French-born architect who established himself in Africa ten years before the independence achievements. Active in Africa from 1949 until 1993 and concentrated in Francophone West Africa (Senegal, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Benin, and Togo) and central Africa (Cameroon and Gabon), the Bureaux d’Etudes Henri Chomette in 50 years gained a sustained reputation based on the contribution of African architects, engineers, craftsmen, and artists in the building of modern African states. Born in Saint-Etienne (a city near Lyon), Henri Chomette (1921–95) developed early a passion for architecture. A student of Tony Garnier in Lyon (1941–45), Othello Zavaronni, and Gustave Perret at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1945–46), Chomette earned his degree in architecture in 1946. An admirer of Le Corbusier and intern in his atelier de la rue de Sèvres 35 in Par...

Architect, United States Gordon Bunshaft was a partner in the New York office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and was an adherent of European modernism as well as one of the leaders of a generation of architects who made buildings of glass, metal, reinforced concrete, and travertine familiar in North America. At his best, he created works of highly refined proportion, efficient function, imaginative construction, and adaptation to sites that were often difficult. His later works were often bulkier and simplified in geometric form; nevertheless they include imaginative solutions to complicated problems, humane consideration for those who work in them, and dramatic boldness. His work encompassed institutional buildings such as the Beinecke Library (1963) for rare books and manuscripts at Yale University (a building he thought might potentially be his most enduring work), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (1974) on the Mall in Entries A–F 349 Washington, D.C., and the presidential...