Eduardo Fernando Catalano (December 19, 1917 – January 28, 2010) was an Argentine architect.

Life and career

Born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

, Catalano went to the United States on a scholarship to the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urba ...

. In 1945, after earning his second master's degree in architecture returned to Buenos Aires where he taught at the University of Buenos Aires and ran a private practice. Catalano then taught at the

Architectural Association The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest private school of architecture in the UK. The AA hosts exhibitions, lectures, symposia and publications. History The Architectura ...

in London from 1950 to 1951, when he came back to the United States as a Professor of Architecture at the School of Design in Raleigh,

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State, North Carolina State, NC State University, or NCSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Founded in 1887 and p ...

. In 1956 he began teaching in the graduate program for

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

, until 1977, when he moved on "to discover and participate in other endeavors as rewarding as teaching".Catalano, E: "Eduardo Catalano", pages 7–10. Officina Edizioni, 1978 Catalano had an "understanding of the indivisible relationship between space and structure", which earned him praise from

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

, who wrote to ''House and Home'' magazine when he saw the publishing of the "Raleigh House" AKA the Catalano House to say "It is refreshing to see that the shelter, which is the most important element in domestic architecture, has been so imaginatively and skillfully treated as in the house by Eduardo Catalano". Catalano sold the house when he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to teach at MIT. Years of neglect at the end of the 20th century culminated in the house's demolition in 2001.Jetset – Designs for Modern Living: Catalano House – Destroyed Forever
Other buildings designed by Catalano include the US embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina and in

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

, South Africa, the

Juilliard School of Music The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became the Juilliard School, named afte ...

at New York City's

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 ...

, Guilford County Courthouse in

Greensboro Greensboro (; ) is a city in Guilford County, North Carolina, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 census, its population was 299,035; it was estimated to be 307,381 in 2024. It is the third-most populous city in North Carolina, af ...

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

, and the Stratton Student Center at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. (Catalano designed the Guilford County-Greensboro Government Center, not to be confused with the Guilford County Courthouse, designed by Harry Barton from 1918 to 1920.) The Catalano House, built in 1954 and which Catalano is best known for, was designed using a hyperbolic paraboloid roof. Here is a picture of the origina
House.
The roof of the house, a curved structure that is built from straight elements (tongue and groove boarding) evolved from his studies on geometric and structural properties of hyperbolic paraboloids. These studies, which included testing of new materials like aluminum and thin-shell concrete, were published by the University of North Carolina in ''Structures of Warped Surface.'' Eduardo Catalano also created the environmental kinetic sculpture ''

Floralis Genérica ''Floralis Genérica'' is a sculpture made of steel and aluminum located in Plaza de las Naciones Unidas, Avenida Figueroa Alcorta, Buenos Aires, a gift to the city by the Argentine architect Eduardo Catalano. Catalano once said that the flower ...

'' in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

, Buenos Aires.

Architectural works

Publications

*Gubitosi, Camillo, and Izzo, Alberto, ''Eduardo Catalano - buildings and projects, Catalogue of the Exhibition held in Naples'', 1978. *Catalano, Eduardo. ''Structure and Geometry'', Cambridge Architectural Press, 1986. *Catalano, Eduardo. ''the constant - dialogues on architecture in black and white'', Cambridge Architectural Press, 2000.

References

External links

The Flower of Buenos Aires – Eduardo CatalanoGuide to the Eduardo Catalano Papers 1940-2017Guide to the Eduardo Catalano Slides 1954-2002
* (Spanish)

Volume 2 of Arquitectos Americanos Contemporáneos
{{DEFAULTSORT:Catalano, Eduardo 1917 births 2010 deaths Argentine people of Italian descent University of Pennsylvania alumni Harvard Graduate School of Design alumni Architects from Buenos Aires Place of birth missing MIT School of Architecture and Planning faculty Academic staff of the University of Buenos Aires