Ex-Dean, Noted Architect Sert Dies; He Designed Science, Holyoke Centers

Josep Lluis Sert, former dean of the Graduate School of Design (GSD) and an internationally prominent architect, who designed several of Harvard's newest buildings, died of cancer Monday at age 80 in Spain.

Sert designed the Science Center, holyoke Center and the Peabody Terrace Apartments--three of Harvard's most significant late 20th-century construction projects.

During his 16-year reign at the GSD, Sert created the first American degree in Urban Design a part of his broader interest in city planning.

"He was very concerned about urban unity," current GSD Dean Gerald M McCue said yesterday.

Pedestrian's Friend

Juan B. Marichal, Smith Professor of French and Spanish Languages and Literatures and a personal friend of Sert, said yesterday that the buildings Sert designed at Harvard reflected this concern. His plans for the Science Center, for example, called for huge, centralized lecture halls in order to cut down the time students spend traveling from class to class, Marichal said.

Sert's architecture is successful because his buildings are designed to lure people into them. McCue said Sert's work "typifies what new buildings ought to be they invite and entice the public through them.

Holyoke Center's main plaza and walk-through. McCue said, achieve this by providing a rest area for students and a short-cut between River Houses and the main campus.

Former President Nathan M. Pusey '28 recruited Sert in 1953 to supervise a wide-ranging expansion of Harvard facilities which included the three buildings Sert designed.

'A New Creativity'

Sert sought to bring "a new creativity" to the Harvard campus. Huson Jackson, a business partner of Sert, said yesterday. "He was not content to continue building in the old Georgian and Victorian style," Jackson said. As part of this effort. Sert brought the prominent French modernist architect Charles Le Corbusier to Harvard in 1963 to design the Carpenter Center, the tamed designer's only American work.

Sert retired from his position at the graduate school of GSD in 1969 but continued his career as an architect. In 1981 he received the gold medal of the American institute of Architects, the most prestigious American award in architecture, for his lifetime work.