Cranbrook Mourns the Passing of Gyo Obata
HOK Architecture announced earlier this week that co-founder Gyo Obata (Architecture ’46) passed away on March 3, 2022. Obata co-founded Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum (HOK) Architecture, based in St. Louis, MO, in 1955 and was the design principle for 50 years.
Gyo Obata studied at Cranbrook Academy of Art in the mid-1940s under Eliel Saarinen. In a 2006 interview, Obata credited Saarinen with a positive influence on his growth, particularly noting the influence of Saarinen’s attention to detail in design.
“Saarinen’s teachings had an enormous positive influence on me. He emphasized the relationship of every element in a design and the importance of integrating them, from the smallest through the largest. Since then, I have always been interested in working on large-scale projects where many smaller parts must fit within the greater whole.” – Gyo Obata
Obata is known for project such as Priory Chapel at Saint Louis Abbey, National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, and The Galleria in Houston. Some of his earliest designs at HOK were for school buildings for a growing post-World War II population in St. Louis and the surrounding area.
Read HOK’s full retrospective article for more details about his life, career, and designs.
More articles and videos:
KSDK News on the effect of the United States’ Japanese internment on Gyo Obata’s path to St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (where Gyo Obata received his Bachelor’s degree)
History of Design and Innovation HOK (HOK Network on YouTube, 2016)
