Josep Llus Sert

Vocation

Catalan architect and city planner. In 1939 Sert went into exile in New York City where he worked with the Town Planning Associates, carrying out numerous urban plans for cities in South America. In 1953 he became Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design (1953–1969). There, he initiated the world's first degree program in urban design; integrated the programs of architecture, planning, landscape and urban design, and taught many of today's leading architects. In 1961 Sert brought Le Corbusier to the United States to design his first and only building in the Western Hemisphere, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard, and a gallery in the Carpenter Center is now named in Sert's honor. In 1981 he received the AIA Gold Medal. Josep Lluis Sert counted amongst his close friends the likes of Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, Georges Braque, Mirko Basaldella, and Marc Chagall, for whom he designed studios and homes. He died on March 15, 1983 in Barcelona. Link to Wikipedia biography