Henry Cobb, Courtly Architect of Bostons Hancock Tower, Dies at 93 – The New York Times

Mr. Cobbs notable projects included the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles (1989), long that citys tallest; the World Trade Center Barcelona (1999), inspired by a boat; and the Torre Espacio (2008), a Madrid skyscraper that resembles a rocket.

In 2009, he completed the Goldman Sachs headquarters, at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, which was widely praised for its discreet elegance, and a dormitory complex at Princeton University, known as Butler College, which replicates the intimacy of the campuss gothic dormitories but in modernist form. (In recent decades, Mr. Cobb shared design credit with several of the firms younger partners.)

Mr. Cobb did not have the high profile of contemporaries like Frank Gehry or Mr. Pei. He called them formgivers and himself a problem-solver. Yet he was an architect of immense creativity, Mr. Goldberger wrote, and a major influence on the profession as an educator and mentor. Mr. Campbell said that Mr. Cobbs great intelligence and great integrity which he wielded with a gentlemanly manner were as important to his status as the buildings he designed.

Henry Nichols Cobb was born on April 8, 1926, the second of three sons of Charles Kane Cobb, an investment counselor, and Elsie Quincy (Nichols) Cobb. He traced his roots to another Henry Cobb, who was born in Kent, England, in 1596 and landed on Cape Cod in 1626. But his family wasnt wealthy, Mr. Cobb, said, and his mother went to work during the Depression to help support the family.

Still, his parents managed to take him to Europe when he was 9 a trip, he said, that began his lifelong fascination with architecture. Nine, he said, is the perfect age: You are mature enough to take a lot in, but not yet preoccupied with yourself, the way you become very shortly thereafter.

Mr. Cobb graduated from Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire in 1944, had an accelerated undergraduate education at Harvard College, graduating in 1947, and then studied at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. As an undergraduate he joined the naval R.O.T.C. on campus.

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Henry Cobb, Courtly Architect of Bostons Hancock Tower, Dies at 93 - The New York Times