The Knowlton School is saddened to report the death of our colleague Professor José Oubrerie. Oubrerie joined the faculty as Architecture Section Head in 1991 and remained a vital force in the school well after his retirement in 2013.

The last surviving member of Le Corbusier’s atelier, Oubrerie’s teaching and practice offered students, academics, and practitioners the ideal of architecture as a daemon to be invoked and animated by succeeding generations. 

Professor of Architecture Todd Gannon spoke to The Architect’s Newspaper about Oubrerie’s impact at Knowlton and beyond.

[Oubrerie] tore at his students’ models and scribbled over their drawings, excising the extraneous with the force of a tornado. Then, just before he delivered the now-obvious coup de grace, he’d stop, turn to you with a sly smile, and intone, ‘You see? It could be good!’ Above all, José loved architecture. His infectious enthusiasm for great design was as boundless as his disdain for gutless conventionality, which is perhaps best encapsulated in his distinctive pronunciation of the word ‘sheetrock.’ He was gregarious and hilarious, fearlessly opinionated, and smart as a whip. Though we’ve lost his one-of-a-kind voice, the memory of his unbridled passions—for great food and wine, great conversation, and the distinctive pleasures of architecture, literature, music, and art—remains with us, and will persist as a model for us all.

At the request of his wife Cicely Wylde Oubrerie, those who wish to contribute in José Oubrerie’s memory should designate it to the cancer research institute of their choice.