Horn

Gerald A. Horn, 79, a prominent Chicago architect, died on Aug. 9 of cancer. He was a partner at architecture firm Holabird & Root from 1988 to 2004, managing numerous designs, including the Illinois Bell Telephone building, which won an American Institute of Architects national design award in 1974.

Other noteworthy designs include those for the the Chicago Historical Society expansion, Federal Reserve Bank Building addition and Northwestern University Law School.

Horn also was a longtime educator at the Illinois Institute of Technology School of Architecture.

He studied under mid-century modernist architect Craig Ellwood but was associated with the "Chicago Seven," which rejected modernism's oppressive institutionalization.

Horn, whose work reflected a context-driven design approach, "was a true artist, all about the pure structure," says Greg Cook, Holabird & Root managing principal. "He was very complex in his designs, he did them all in his head, and they always came out beautiful."