Howard Elkus, FAIA, RIBA, LEED AP, cofounder of the Boston-based architectural firm Elkus Manfredi Architects, died on April 1 in Palm Beach, Fla., 11 days before his 79th birthday. The firm announced his passing on April 3 but did not disclose the cause of death or information about survivors.
“We grieve the loss of Howard as a co-founder of our firm, as a visionary architect, as a mentor, and as a friend. We extend our condolences to his wife, children, and immediate family,” the firm stated.
A graduate of Stanford University (B.S. mechanical engineering) and Harvard University (M.Arch with Distinction), Elkus began his five-decade-long career with the Walter Gropius-founded Architects Collaborative, where Elkus met his future partner David Manfredi. (The Architects Collaborative disbanded in 1995.)
In a statement, Manfredi referred to Elkus as “an extrordinary friend and business partner. He uniquely brought joy to every endeavor, made everyone he met feel special, and lived life fully every day.”
Howard Elkus, who cofounded the Boston firm Elkus Manfredi Architects with David Manfredi in 1988, died on April 1 at the age of 78. Image: Bruce Rogovin
His architectural and interior design work with Elkus Manfredi Architects ranged widely across myriad building typologies. In recent years, the firm has designed headquarters for New Balance, WS Development, and Blue Cross Blue Shield; as well as the Verb Hotel in Boston, and Linq Hotel & Casino (a reimagining of Caesar’s Imperial Palace) and City Hall in Las Vegas.
Other recent major projects Elkus was involved in include Miami Worldcenter, a redevelopment of 27 acres in downtown Miami that will expand the city’s central business district by between 12% and 15%, and create a vibrant walkable pedestrian environment. The first phase build-out includes three residential towers over 1 million sf of podium retail.
The firm also designed the podium retail component of the Hudson Yards project in New York that’s currently under construction. Elkus referred to HudsonYards as “the biggest mixed-use project in the United States, and one of the most impressive in the world.”
Elkus was the grandchild of Felix Kahn, one of the Master Builders of the West, and grandnephew of Albert Kahn, the foremost American industrial architect of his day. In a 2004 interview, Elkus told Visual Merchandising and Store Design (VMSD) that his first real design assignment was Copley Place, which in the mid 1980s was Boston’s largest urban mixed-use project.
He revealed during that interview that his inspiration for projects came from “the world out there. Like music, I get it from the simplest notes to a resounding orchestra. Nature does it for me and so, too, does man’s wondrous works, perhaps most of all the heroism of less-fortunate souls.”
Elkus saw Hudson Yards are part of a broader global urbanization, which he viewed as “wildly exciting and the potential is off the charts.” In a 2015 interview with Interior Design magazine, he said the “great question” of that movement continues to be “how do we maximize quality of life?”
Related Stories
| Nov 16, 2010
CityCenter’s new Harmon Hotel targeted for demolition
MGM Resorts officials want to demolish the unopened 27-story Harmon Hotel—one of the main components of its brand new $8.5 billion CityCenter development in Las Vegas. In 2008, inspectors found structural work on the Harmon didn’t match building plans submitted to the county, with construction issues focused on improperly placed steel reinforcing bar. In January 2009, MGM scrapped the building’s 200 condo units on the upper floors and stopped the tower at 27 stories, focusing on the Harmon having just 400 hotel rooms. With the Lord Norman Foster-designed building mired in litigation, construction has since been halted on the interior, and the blue-glass tower is essentially a 27-story empty shell.
| Nov 16, 2010
Where can your firm beat the recession? Try any of these 10 places
Wondering where condos and rental apartments will be needed? Where companies are looking to rent office space? Where people will need hotel rooms, retail stores, and restaurants? Newsweek compiled a list of the 10 American cities best situated for economic recovery. The cities fall into three basic groups: Texas, the New Silicon Valleys, and the Heartland Honeys. Welcome to the recovery.
| Nov 16, 2010
Landscape architecture challenges Andrés Duany’s Congress for New Urbanism
Andrés Duany, founder of the Congress for the New Urbanism, adopted the ideas, vision, and values of the early 20th Century landscape architects/planners John Nolen and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., to launch a movement that led to more than 300 new towns, regional plans, and community revitalization project commissions for his firm. However, now that there’s a societal buyer’s remorse about New Urbanism, Duany is coming up against a movement that sees landscape architecture—not architecture—as the design medium more capable of organizing the city and enhancing the urban experience.
| Nov 16, 2010
Just for fun: Words that architects use
If you regularly use such words as juxtaposition, folly, truncated, and articulation, you may be an architect. Architects tend to use words rarely uttered during normal conversations. In fact, 62% of all the words that come out of an architects mouth could be replaced by a simpler and more widely known word, according to this “report.” Review this list of designer words, and once you manage to work them into daily conversation, you’re on your way to becoming a bonafide architect.
| Nov 16, 2010
NFRC approves technical procedures for attachment product ratings
The NFRC Board of Directors has approved technical procedures for the development of U-factor, solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC), and visible transmittance (VT) ratings for co-planar interior and exterior attachment products. The new procedures, approved by unanimous voice vote last week at NFRC’s Fall Membership Meeting in San Francisco, will add co-planar attachments such as blinds and shades to the group’s existing portfolio of windows, doors, skylights, curtain walls, and window film.
| Nov 15, 2010
Gilbane to acquire W.G. Mills, Inc.
Rhode Island-based Gilbane Building Company announced plans to acquire W.G. Mills, Inc., a construction management firm with operations based in Florida. The acquisition will dramatically strengthen Gilbane’s position in Florida’s growing market and complement its already established presence in the southeast.
| Nov 11, 2010
Saint-Gobain to make $80 million investment in SAGE Electrochromics
Saint-Gobain, one of the world’s largest glass and construction material manufacturers, is making a strategic equity investment in SAGE Electrochromics to make electronically tintable “dynamic glass” an affordable, mass-market product, ushering in a new era of energy-saving buildings.
| Nov 11, 2010
Saint-Gobain to make $80 million investment in SAGE Electrochromics
Saint-Gobain, one of the world’s largest glass and construction material manufacturers, is making a strategic equity investment in SAGE Electrochromics to make electronically tintable “dynamic glass” an affordable, mass-market product, ushering in a new era of energy-saving buildings.