Ricardo Scofidio, AIA (Born on April 16, 1935 in New York, and died on March 6, 2025 in New York,), was a partner of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R). Scofidio studied at Columbia University before practising at a New York architecture firm and becoming a professor at the Cooper Union School of Architecture in 1965 for several decades. It was there he met then-student Diller, almost 20 years his junior, and they founded their studio in 1981, in 1999, they were the first architects to receive a MacArthur ‘genius’ grant (Architect Charles Renfro’s name was added after he became a partner more than two decades later).
Alongside partner Elizabeth Diller, Ric’s cross-genre work distinguished with TIME’s "100 Most Influential People" list and the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship awarded in the field of architecture. He led the design of the High Line – the adaptive reuse of an obsolete, industrial rail infrastructure into a 1.5 mile-long public park, Blur Building – a pavilion made of fog on Lake Neuchâtel for the 2002 Swiss Expo, and contributed to the redesign of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York, and The Broad in Los Angeles.
Ric spearheads many of the studio’s independent works, including Soft Sell, a video installation in an abandoned porn theatre in Times Square; Tourisms: suitCase Studies, an investigation of American tourist attractions at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; and Musings on a Glass Box for the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris. He is a Professor Emeritus at The Cooper Union School of Architecture.
