Peter Chermayeff

Peter Chermayeff (* 1936 in London ) is an American architect , designer and project developer .

Life

He is the son of the Russian-born architect Serge Chermayeff (1900-1996). He came to the USA at the age of four. Through his well-known father, he came into contact with people like Walter Gropius and Richard Buckminster Fuller at an early age .

He studied at Phillips Academy in Andover and Harvard College , where he graduated magna cum laude in 1957 . He then studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and graduated in 1962 with a Master of Architecture .

In 1961, while studying design, he made his first experimental film, Orange and Blue . In 1971 and 1984 he made two expeditions to the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania . There he made several animal films that were later used as educational films in the USA.

In 1962, when he was just 26 years old, he and six friends of his applied for the construction of the New England Aquarium in Boston . To everyone's surprise, the young team won this contract, which had just registered the company “Cambridge Seven Associates” (C7A) as a joint architecture firm the day before. With this order, Chermayeff established his worldwide fame as the most famous designer of large aquariums.

Chermayeff developed with C7A in the 1960s design guidelines and standards for Boston's public transportation system, the US exhibition and the US Pavilion at the World Exposition 1967 in Montreal , the San Antonio Museum of Art in San Antonio ( Texas ), the Nivola Museum in Orani ( Sardinia ) and six large aquariums.

After completing the New England Aquarium in Boston (1969), in the following years he built the large aquariums in Baltimore ( National Aquarium , 1981), Osaka ( The Ring of Fire Aquarium , 1990), Chattanooga (Tennessee) ( Tennessee Aquarium , 1992), Genoa ( Acquario di Genova , 1992) and Lisbon ( Oceanário de Lisboa , 1998).

Unrealized plans were the Irish National Aquarium , the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and designs for La Ciotat ( France ), Oberhausen , Düsseldorf , Bremerhaven ( Ocean Park Bremerhaven ) and Hamburg ( HafenCity ).

In 1998 Chermayeff left his first company C7A and founded the company CSP with the two younger partners Peter Sollogub and Bobby Poole. The company's activities spanned architecture, urban development , exhibition design , graphic design , film production and the management of interdisciplinary design teams.

With CSP, Chermayeff had the leading role in projects such as the rainforest in the Environmental Project in Iowa , the planning for the Hudson Oceanarium for Pier 40 in Manhattan , a large aquarium in Singapore , the National Museum of Marine Science and Technology in Taiwan , and for the Competition project of the Museum of Science and Technology in Milwaukee ( Wisconsin ) as well as in the planning for the expansion of the Berlin Aquarium and the Berlin Zoo .

In 1990 he also founded the company IDEA for project development, project management, construction management and start-up operations for large aquariums. Chermayeff has been the company's president since its inception.

Chermayeff teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Design , sits on the University of Pennsylvania's Board of Design Consultants , the Board of Advisors at Boston University's School of Visual Arts , and the Rhode Island School of Design's Visiting Committee . He has been a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects since 1983 .

Awards (selection)

• 1979: Fuess Award from Phillips Academy (Andover)

Web links

• Detailed biography with photo
• Peter Chermayeff on GoogleBooks
• Official CSP homepage
• Chermayeff interview about aquarium architecture
• List of his films