Remembering Ricardo Scofidio (1935–2025)

Ric Scofidio, a preeminent architect of his generation and a dear friend, has left the stage. As someone who never looked for the limelight nor sought to be at the center of attention, his kindness, superior judgment, and deep understanding of the art of architecture and the creation of extraordinary spaces for the communities they were built for made his interlocutors feel privileged to be in his presence. When I observed Ric interacting with his partner in life and work, Liz Diller, as well as the other partners and team members in their firm, I always thought of him as akin to a coach who would intervene in strategic moments to redirect the game. With his quiet yet commanding presence and his aptitude for bringing out the best in everyone involved, Ric and his team, over the course of two decades, singlehandedly transformed New York’s urban fabric with surgical interventions across Manhattan. Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s contribution to architecture was and remains refreshing for its spirit of experimentation and eagerness to push boundaries: the office transformed our understanding of a discipline that is often seen as static and bound by too many restrictions.

DS+R’s Blur Building on Lake Neuchâtel, a temporary structure built for the Swiss National Exposition, left an indelible mark on my memory as a young student in the early 2000s. The building was made up of mist, and would constantly change in appearance according to wind and weather conditions—immaterial, yet designed to be experienced haptically as much as visually. For me, this early memory came full circle with MoMA’s 2019 expansion and our significantly broadened collection galleries, which likewise allowed us curators to see the collection not as permanent and unchangeable, but as a living organism that responds to the moment in which we live. To have reinvigorated our belief in architecture’s potential to be a force of transformation and multisensory experience is, for me, Ric’s lasting legacy. He will be missed for both his kind humanity and his exceptional capacities as an architect.
—Martino Stierli, Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design

MoMA Expansion Project, Renovated east-end galleries and spaces, Bauhaus Staircase

MoMA’s main entrance on West 53rd Street. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro

Tall, elegant, and strikingly handsome. That was my first impression of Ric Scofidio. My second impression was that he was exceptionally talented, brilliant even. An outstanding mentor and teacher, he lived for his architecture, and truth be told, for his family and his cars, as I came to learn over time. But architecture in the fullest sense of that word—in the details of its practice and as a way of life—was his passion. With his partner in life and work, Liz Diller, he built one of the most daring and accomplished architectural firms in the world. He had the mind of a Conceptual artist and the ability of an engineer. He understood the importance and impact of ideas as much as he understood structure, materials, and design. His work fused together these different ways of thinking. The firm’s buildings could be as ephemeral as mist (like the 2002 Blur Building in Switzerland) or as solid as stone and glass (like the 2019 addition to The Museum of Modern Art). What united all of the firm’s work was the clarity of Ric’s thinking, the rigor of his approach, and the originality of his designs.

I had known Ric for decades before working with Diller Scofidio + Renfro on the 2019 project at the Museum. We first met when Ric and Liz were working on the High Line, and we became friends over a shared love of food, travel, art, and architecture. Ric and Liz were the perfect team. Liz would generate a hundred ideas and Ric would refine several in very clear directions. Liz was a bundle of energy, Ric was laid back and calm. Liz would run at a problem, Ric would circle around it. Together they would arrive at a variety of unexpected and always exhilarating options.

MoMA expansion model designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro

What I admired most about Ric is that he listened more than he talked, and when he made a suggestion it was not just a suggestion but, in fact, the perfect solution to whatever we were discussing. At one point during the design process, I mentioned to Ric and Liz that we needed to find a way to make our main entrance more visible. Liz and I spent several weeks looking at different options, none of which worked. And then one day Ric took out a notebook and made a little sketch of the entrance with a soaring canopy suspended in midair as if it were floating—and there it was, the solution we had been seeking. It was typical of Ric. For all his brilliance as a designer and theoretician, he was the consummate problem solver, and his solutions were invariably surprisingly simple, even when they resolved complicated spatial or structural issues. He was like a Zen master. He radiated a quiet authority and calmness: no need to panic, it’s all going to work out was his message. But he could also challenge you to look at options that you had not considered. He liked to subtly push you out of your comfort zone, as when he told me that the suite of galleries we had been working on didn’t work and needed to be entirely rethought; or that our anxiety over the height of one of the galleries on the first floor was misplaced; or that the circulation of the entrance sequence was all wrong (all of which we had spent months working on). But he pointed these issues out with a smile, knowing that we would come around to his point of view—and we did.

Ric’s death leaves a void in the architectural ecosystem of New York City. We have lost more than a colleague and beloved friend. We have lost one of the wisest minds in the business, and one of the most original architects in the world. He, along with Liz and the rest of the firm, made The Museum of Modern Art an immeasurably better place. From the beautiful extension of the Bauhaus Staircase, to the Hess Lounge, to the lobby, and the Blade Stair and café in the extension Diller Scofidio + Renfro designed, to the new galleries in the Geffen wing, his presence is encoded throughout our building.
—Glenn D. Lowry, David Rockefeller Director of MoMA

MoMA Expansion Project, Renovated east-end galleries and spaces, Bauhaus Staircase