David M. Childs, a renowned architect who shaped the New York City skyline, died on Wednesday at the age of 83. His wife, Annie, said the cause was Lewy body dementia.
The couple were staying in Pelham, N.Y., to be near two of their children. Mr. Childs was the chief architect of 1 World Trade Center, also known as the Freedom Tower.
The shimmering, eight-faceted structure stands adjacent to the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan. It is one of a dozen transformative buildings in Manhattan that Mr. Childs and his colleagues at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill designed from the 1980s to the 2010s.
“You know what a Richard Meier building will look like; there’s a style. I’m more like Eero Saarinen, whom I revere. His buildings all look different,” Mr.
Childs said in 2003. The design of 1 World Trade Center underwent at least five iterations during the rebuilding of ground zero. This reflected Mr.
Childs’s commitment to creating something both meaningful and impactful. Paul Goldberger, a former architecture critic and author, assessed Mr. Childs’s career in a recent email.
“There was always an earnestness to his architecture, a seriousness of intention and a deep belief in urbanistic values. He was concerned about the larger civic good, and he worked hard to convince developers to take this into account. This was his legacy as much as pure design.”
Mr.
David Childs’s architectural legacy
Childs spent much of his career at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The firm shared a tribute to him, noting that he was “instrumental in some of SOM’s most impactful projects.” These included the master plan for the National Mall, the expansion of Dulles International Airport, and both One World Trade Center and 7 World Trade Center in New York City.
Larry Silverstein, the real estate developer who worked closely with Mr. Childs on rebuilding Lower Manhattan after 9/11, expressed his sorrow over the architect’s death. “The rebuilding of the World Trade Center was a labor of love for thousands of people, and no single individual was more responsible for its success than David,” Silverstein said.
Born in 1941 in Princeton, New Jersey, Mr. Childs spent his childhood in Mount Kisco, New York. His father was a classics professor at Princeton University, and his mother was the executive director of the Children’s Books Council.
He earned his master’s of architecture at Yale University in 1967. Mr. Childs moved to Washington, D.C. shortly after graduating to help transform Pennsylvania Avenue into a ceremonial boulevard as part of a presidential commission.
There, he met politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Nathaniel A. Owings, founding partner of SOM. Owings invited Mr.
Childs to start SOM’s Washington, D.C. office in 1971. In 1984, Mr. Childs moved to SOM’s New York City office, becoming a senior design partner.
He completed projects such as Worldwide Plaza, the New York Mercantile Exchange, the JFK International Arrivals Building, Bear Stearns Headquarters, the Riverside South masterplan, and Time Warner Headquarters at Columbus Circle. He also helped renovate and preserve Lever House. Mr.
Childs is remembered for his charm and his commitment to raising the standard of everyday development. His influence on architecture and urban planning remains profound, and his legacy will continue to inspire future generations of architects.
