Marinscope
Famed architect M. Arthur Gensler Jr. died last week in his Mill Valley home at the age of 85. He built his design businesses into a large global architect firm.
The Wall Street Journal in reporting his passing wrote: “Art Gensler had modest ambitions for the architectural firm he launched in 1965 in a sublet space in San Francisco. ‘My original dream,’ he wrote later, ‘was to have about a six-person firm to design houses and perhaps some small buildings.’
“Instead, he built one of the world’s largest architecture and design firms, now known simply as Gensler, with more than 5,200 employees in 50 offices scattered across 14 countries. The firm got its initial traction in a type of work big-name architects tended to despise: designing interior spaces.”
The cause of death was reported to be complications from lung disease.
Art and I were hired independently in 1959 to work for the architectural firm of Norman and Dawbarn in Kingston Jamaica, British West Indies. He from the USA and I from Toronto Canada. We met again in San Francisco as we pursued our separate careers. I am sorry to hear of his demise and of his wife Drew. I have many home movies of Art, his wife and his small children that I made in Jamaica. Which I am happy to share with them if they are interested.