GAETANO PESCE (1939 - 2024) was an Italian architect and designer who was born in La Spezia, Italy and studied architecture at the University of Venice from 1958 to 1963. The guiding principle of Pesce's four-decade long practice was viewing modernism less a style but rather as a method for interpreting the present and hinting at the future, in which individuality is preserved and celebrated.

He taught architecture at the Institut d’Architecture et d’Etudes Urbaines in Strasbourg, France for 28 years and also taught at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Domus Academy in Milan, Polytechinc of Hong Kong, the Architectural School of Sao Paulo, and at the Cooper Union in New York City, where he eventually settled in 1980 and made his long-term home.

Pesce’s work is featured in over 30 permanent collections of the most important museums in the world, such as MoMa of New York and San Francisco, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Vitra Museum in Germany, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Pompidou Center and Musee des Arts Décoratifs of Louvre in Paris. He work has also been exhibited in art in galleries world wide.

(Photo Credit: Sight Unseen; Source: Gaetano Pesce)