Eduardo Catalano, an inventive Argentine architect and longtime professor, died on January 28 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Born in Buenos Aires, Catalano studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard. He is best known for the Raleigh House (1954), a glass pavilion topped by a 4,000-square-foot hyperbolic paraboloid roof. The three-bedroom dwelling, which Catalano designed for himself while living and teaching in North Carolina, was named “House of the Decade” by House and Home Magazine. It was demolished in 2001 after years of neglect.

Catalano’s other projects include the Juilliard School of Music in New York City (1969), with Pietro Belluschi, and MIT’s Stratton Student Center in Cambridge (1965). He taught at MIT from 1956 to 1977. 

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Catalano’s later work includes the 18-ton Floralis Generica sculpture in Buenos Aires. It opens and closes via a hydraulic system.