Gunnar Birkerts

Gunnar Birkerts (, January 17, 1925 – August 15, 2017) was a Latvian-American architect. He was born in Riga, Latvia.
For most of his career, Birkerts was based in the metropolitan area of Detroit, Michigan. Some of his designs include the Corning Museum of Glass and the Corning Fire Station in Corning, New York, Marquette Plaza in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Venezuela.
In 2014, he designed the National Library of Latvia in Riga, Latvia, aka the Castle of Light, whose architectural form references and draws inspiration from Latvian folklore.
Birkerts died at the age of 92 on August 15, 2017 at his home in Needham, Massachusetts of congestive heart failure.