Marshall Meyers; Postmodern Architect

Marshall D. Meyers, an important figure in the birth of American postmodern architecture, died of cancer Sunday at his home in Pasadena. He was 70.

Meyers’ career always will be associated with that of the great American postmodernist Louis Kahn, one of the first architects to successfully challenge modernism’s dominance in postwar America. Kahn’s work was known for its monumentality and links to classical precedents.

Meyers joined Kahn’s office in 1957 and contributed to the design of virtually all of Kahn’s major works, including the A.N. Richards medical building in Philadelphia (1956-65), the unbuilt Jewish Martyrs Memorial in New York and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla (1959-65). He was project manager for the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth (1966-72).

Even after Kahn’s death in 1974, much of Meyers’ career was devoted to building on his mentor’s legacy. Meyers oversaw the completion of Kahn’s Center for British Art at Yale University, and designed a major renovation of the Richards medical building and bookstore furniture for the main entrance gallery of the Kimbell.

In 1985, he joined Bower Lewis Thrower Architects, where he was project manager for the design of the Cone Wing of the Baltimore Museum of Art. In 1999, he joined the office of Perkins & Will in Pasadena as a senior associate.

Meyers received a bachelor’s degree in industrial design from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y., and a master’s of architecture from Yale. He became a fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1994.

He is survived by his wife, Anne; a daughter, Pamela; and two granddaughters.