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The World Financial Center in New York City and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur are two of the most notable structures designed by Argentine-American architect César Pelli. The American Institute of Architects named him one of the ten most influential living American architects in 1991 and gave him the AIA Gold Medal in 1995.

Pelli was born on October 12th, 1926, in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina. His mother was a teacher and his father was a civil servant who had been forced to work odd jobs because of the Depression. Pelli studied architecture at the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán and graduated in 1949. He then went to the University of Illinois School of Architecture in the United States for further study in architecture in 1952.

He wed Diana Balmori, a partner at his company and a well-known landscape architect. They have two children: Rafael Pelli, an accomplished architect like his father, and Denis Pelli, a neurobiologist and professor of psychology and neural science at New York University. The San Remo on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was where the couple’s apartment was located.

Pelli designed the Sunset Mountain Park Urban Nucleus (an unbuilt project) in 1965. In 1968, Pelli joined Gruen Associates in Los Angeles as a partner for design. In 1969, Pelli created the COMSAT research and development laboratories in Clarksburg, Maryland. Pelli created his first iconic structure with the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, California. Pelli designed the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Japan, in 1972 and it was finished in 1975. Pelli also taught at UCLA’s architecture program while he was working in Los Angeles .

Pelli passed away at his home in New Haven, Connecticut, on July 19, 2019, according to reports. He was 92 years old. No reason was provided .