The year 1979 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
Buildings and structures
See also: Category:Buildings and structures completed in 1979
Buildings opened
- March – Kuwait Towers opens in Kuwait City with a Viewing Sphere which completes a full turn every 30 minutes.
- September 2 – Prabhupada's Palace of Gold is dedicated in Marshall County, West Virginia, USA, as a memorial shrine built by Hare Krishna devotees.
- September 3 – National Theater of Cuba, Havana;1 construction of the building began in 1951.
- October 10 – The Atheneum, designed by Richard Meier, opens as a visitor center in New Harmony, Indiana.
Buildings completed
- Brønnøysund Bridge, Norway.2
- Parque Central Complex, Caracas, Venezuela, the tallest building in South America.
- The Tower of Europe in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
- Vienna International Centre, for the United Nations Office at Vienna.
- Rio de Janeiro Cathedral (Catedral Metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro), with 64 meter (210 ft) tall stained glass windows.
- Hedmark Museum, Hamar, Norway, designed by Sverre Fehn.
- Bauhaus Archive, West Berlin, Germany, designed by Alexander Cvijanović with Hans Bandel after Walter Gropius.
- "Stars" housing estate, Katowice, Poland.
Events
- December: The Thirties Society (now the Twentieth Century Society) established in the United Kingdom as an architectural conservation pressure group.
- Pritzker Prize instituted by Jay A. Pritzker.
- Construction begins at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center designed by I. M. Pei.
- Xanadu House design started.
- Construction of the 360 foot (110 m) communications mast atop the North Tower (1WTC) of the World Trade Center is completed.
Awards
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal – I. M. Pei.
- AIA Gold Medal – I. M. Pei.
- Architecture Firm Award – Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham.
- Grand prix national de l'architecture – Claude Parent.
- Pritzker Prize – Philip Johnson.
- RAIA Gold Medal – Bryce Mortlock.
- RIBA Royal Gold Medal – Charles and Ray Eames.
- Twenty-five Year Award – Yale University Art Gallery.
Deaths
- April 6 – Ivan Vasilyov, Bulgarian architect (born 1893)3
- July 13 – Juraj Neidhardt, Croatian architect, teacher, urban planner and writer (born 1899)4
- October 11 – Roger Hayward, US artist, architect, optical designer and astronomer (born 1899)5
- December 8 – Sydney Ancher, Australian architect (born 1904)
- December 31 – Charles Draper Faulkner, Chicago-based architect (born 1890)
References
Teatro Nacional de Cuba homepage http://www.teatronacional.cult.cu/ ↩
Merzagora, Eugenio A. (ed.). "Road Viaducts & Bridges in Norway (> 500 m)". Norske bruer og viadukter. Archived from the original on 2015-07-20. Retrieved 2011-11-03. https://web.archive.org/web/20150720222818/http://www.lotsberg.net/data/norway/bru.html ↩
Ivan Vasilyov https://structurae.net/en/persons/ivan-vasilyov ↩
"Juraj Neidhardt". Archived from the original on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2014-03-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20110706133848/http://www.visitsarajevo.ba/history/yugoslavia/juraj-najdhart ↩
Bell, Trudy (September 2007). "Roger Hayward: Forgotten Artist of Optics". Sky and Telescope 114 (3): 30–37 ↩