Pierre Vago (30 August 1910, in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

– 1 February 2002, in

Noisy-sur-École Noisy-sur-École () is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. Demographics Inhabitants are called ''Noisséens''. See also *Communes of the Seine-et-Marne department The following is ...

) was a French

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

. Vago was known internationally as the publisher of ''L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui'' and General Secretary of the

International Union of Architects The International Union of Architects ( French: ''Union internationale des Architectes''; UIA) is the only international non-governmental organization that represents the world's architects, now estimated to number some 3.2 million in all. About ...

, of which he remained the honorary president until his death.

Life

Pierre Vago, born in Budapest, studied at the ''

École Spéciale d'Architecture The École spéciale d'architecture (ÉSA; formerly École centrale d'architecture) is a private school for architecture at 254, boulevard Raspail in Paris, France. The school was founded in 1865 by engineer Emile Trélat as reaction against the ...

'' (ESA) in Paris. Because of his housing projects, factories, and the Central Banks of the French colonies of Tunisia and Algeria, as well as his controversial

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, he received much attention in the postwar years. In 1957, he designed one of the new residential buildings in the

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

Hansaviertel The Hansaviertel () is the smallest ''Ortsteil'' (district) of Berlin and is between Großer Tiergarten and the Spree River, within the central Mitte borough of Berlin. The district was almost completely destroyed during World War II but was re ...

. As the publisher of the influential magazine, ''L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui'' (Today's Architecture) Pierre Vago became an internationally renowned architecture critic. In 1948, he founded the International Union of Architects, and also served as its General Secretary for many years. His goal was to unite all the architects of the world in an umbrella organization of all the national architects' associations. In 2005, the UIA is recognized in 95 countries and thus represents ca. 1.5 million architects. Under the direction of the UIA, East and West German architects were brought together at the end of the 1950s. Vago was a proponent of Franco-German reconciliation politics. The 1984 International Architecture Symposium "Mensch und Raum" (Man and Space) at the

Vienna University of Technology TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...

(Technische Universität Wien) received international attention. Among the participants were Pierre Vago as well as, amongst others,

Justus Dahinden Justus Dahinden (18 May 1925 - 11 April 2020) was a Swiss architect, teacher and writer about architecture. Life Dahinden was born in Zürich. From 1945 to 1949, he studied architecture at ETH Zürich (ETHZ), graduating in 1956 with his Ph ...

Dennis Sharp Dennis Sharp (30 November 1933 – 6 May 2010) was a British architect, professor, curator, historian, author and editor. His obituary in ''The Guardian'' stated that he 'was well-known as an architectural historian, teacher and active defender o ...

Bruno Zevi Bruno Zevi (22 January 1918 – 9 January 2000) was an Italian architect, historian, professor, curator, author, and editor. Zevi was a vocal critic of "classicizing" modern architecture and postmodernism. Early life Zevi was born and died i ...

Jorge Glusberg Jorge Glusberg (23 September 1932 – 2 February 2012) was an Argentine author, publisher, curator, professor, and conceptual artist. Early life and education Glusberg was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When he was 12 years old Glusberg org ...

Otto Kapfinger Otto is a masculine German given name and a surname. It originates as an Old High German short form (variants ''Audo'', '' Odo'', '' Udo'') of Germanic names beginning in ''aud-'', an element meaning "wealth, prosperity". The name is recorded ...

Frei Otto Frei Paul Otto (; 31 May 1925 – 9 March 2015) was a German architect and structural engineer noted for his use of lightweight structures, in particular tensile and membrane structures, including the roof of the Olympic Stadium in Munich for ...

Paolo Soleri Paolo Soleri (21 June 1919 – 9 April 2013) was an Italian-born American architect. He established the educational Cosanti Foundation and Arcosanti. Soleri was a lecturer in the College of Architecture at Arizona State University and a National ...

Ernst Gisel Ernst is both a surname and a given name, the German, Dutch, and Scandinavian form of Ernest. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Adolf Ernst (1832–1899) German botanist known by the author abbreviation "Ernst" * Anton Ernst (1975-) ...

Ionel Schein Ionel Schein (1927 – 30 December 2004) was a Romanian-born French architect. Schein was a pioneer in the use of synthetic materials and created the first plastic house in 1956. On his death ''Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily af ...

. Pierre Vago was also an honorary member of the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three supp ...

, the German ''Bund Deutscher Architekten'', and the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

Publications (selection)

* Pierre Vago: ''l'Architecture d'aujourd'hui, revue internationale d'architecture contemporaine, Paris'', 1971, ISBN B0000DWOHP * Gabriel Epstein, Pierre Vago, Klaus Müller-Rehm: ''Architektur-Experimente in Berlin und anderswo. Für Julius Posener'', 1989, * Pierre Vago: ''L'UIA, 1948-1998'', Epure 1998, * Pierre Vago: ''Pierre Vago, une vie intense'', Aam 2000,

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vago, Pierre Hungarian emigrants to France 20th-century French architects 1910 births 2002 deaths École Spéciale d'Architecture alumni Olympic competitors in art competitions