This just in from SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture)

ARCHITECT RAIMUND ABRAHAM (1933-2010)

Dies in Car Accident in Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES –(March 4, 2010)–Architect Raimund Abraham, a visiting faculty member at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, died early Thursday in a car accident in downtown Los Angeles, the school announced. 

Abraham, an accomplished architect and educator in Europe and the United States, was born in 1933 in Lienz, Tyrol.   Abraham emigrated from Austria to the United States in 1964, and has taught at the Cooper Union and Pratt Institute since 1971.  He gave a lecture at SCI-Arc on Wednesday evening, hours before his death.

SCI-Arc Director Eric Owen Moss describes Abraham as an irreplaceable force in architecture.

“Earlier in the evening Raimund delivered a powerful lecture at SCI-Arc, re-stating his enduring love for architecture and his willingness to fight for the design discourse as he defined it.  That unique and powerful Abraham advocacy for architecture is irreplaceable. Raimund, We miss you.”

A gathering in honor of Abraham will be held Friday at 1 pm at SCI-Arc in the W.M. Keck Lecture Hall.

Abraham’s work has been shown widely throughout Europe, Mexico, and the US, with exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Museo Correr, Venice, Italy; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Pinakothek, Athens; National Gallery, Berlin; Leo Castelli Gallery, New York; Architektur Museum, Frankfurt; the Venice Biennale; Krinzinger Gallery, Innsbruck; Architectural League, New York; and the Graham Foundation, Chicago.

His awards include 2nd prize for a Cultural Center in Leopoldville, Congo (with F.Gartler-St.Florian, 1959); 2nd prize, Centre Pompidou, Paris; 1st prize, Rainbow Plaza, Niagara Falls; 2nd prize, Shinkenshiko Residential Design Competition, Tokyo; 1st prize, IBA-Berlin; 2nd prize, Paris Opera; 1st prize, Times Square Tower, New York; Stone Lion Award at the Architecture Biennale in Venice; 3rd prize,The New Acropolis Museum, Athens; 1st prize, Austrian Cultural Institute, New York, and 1st prize, Lungo Lago, Ascona, Switzerland.