Werner Seligmann

In 1998 he was awarded The AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion for Architectural Education, awarded jointly by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture and the American Institute of Architect, the highest award for an architectural educator. In addition to serving as a visiting critic, Seligmann wrote and lectured extensively on the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and other architects and issues.

The architectural work of Werner Seligmann won two Progressive Architecture Design Awards, was illustrated on the cover of Progressive Architecture journal three times and was placed, or won, several national and international design competitions. Seligmann's work on developing housing prototypes for the New York State Urban Development Corporation in the 1970s and 1980s established his reputation in the design of social housing. The Ithaca Scattered Site Housing Project (now known as Elm Street and Maple Avenue) has been widely exhibited and published. The project's design was included in the permanent collection of the (Museum of Modern Art MOMA) in New York City. Beth David Synagogue in Binghamton NY (1963) was often seen as a significant synthesis of Wright and Le Corbusier although it was derived from the preliminary sketches for the Villa Shodhan by Le Corbusier. Seligmann also published numerous articles on the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and modern architecture in general.

Seligmann was registered to practice architecture in 1957 by which he had already designed and constructed three small homes. Throughout his teaching career, he maintained a practice and entered many competitions, including the invited competition, Topography of Terror for Berlin, Germany in 1993. His firm, Werner Seligmann and Associates, Architects and Urban Designers was based in Cortland, New York. Launched in 1961, the firm placed in national and international competitions and work of the firm was published and exhibited often, both in the US and abroad.

Seligmann received his B. Arch. degree from Cornell in 1955. On August 29, 1954, he married Jean Lois Liberman. They had two children: Raphael John and Sabina Charlotte. He became a naturalized citizen in 1955. From 1956 to 1958 he taught as an instructor at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas. There he became part of a small group of faculty that was later nicknamed The Texas Rangers, a name later attributed to Alan Chimacoff and Thomas Schumacher, although Chimacoff disputes this. Chimacoff and Schumacher were then students in the graduate design studio taught by Colin Rowe. The Texas Rangers group included historian Colin Rowe, John Shaw, painter Robert Slutzky, John Hejduk, Lee Hirsche, Bernhard Hoesli, Lee Hodgen, and W. Irving Phillips..mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#3a3;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}Caragonne, Alexander (1994). The Texas Rangers, Notes from an Architectural Underground. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-03218-X. After the "Texas Rangers" were dismissed, Seligmann pursued graduate study at the Technische Hochschule in Braunschweig, Germany, from 1958 to 1959. He taught as an Assistant at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (the ETH) in Zürich, Switzerland from 1959 to 1961 and was a designer in the office of Hoesli and Aebli, Zurich, Switzerland. From 1961 to 1974 he was a Professor of Architecture at Cornell University and from 1974 to 1976 a Professor of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design (GSD) at Harvard University. From 1976 to 1990, he was Dean and Professor of Architecture at the Syracuse University School of Architecture. In 1981, Seligmann was named a Fellow of the (American Academy in Rome (FAAR)). In 1986 he was the Eliot Noyes professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. In 1988 he was the William Henry Bishop professor at Yale University. In 1994 he was the Thomas Jefferson Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia. From 1990 to 1993, he was Professor of Architecture at the ETH in Zurich. On his return to Syracuse University, he was named the Distinguished Professor of Architecture.

The family lived in Osnabrück, Germany, until they were captured by the Nazis. Seligmann spent the latter part of the Second World War in a concentration camp, thought to be in Osnabrück. After the camp guards abandoned their posts, he was picked up by American troops and ultimately reunited with his father. This appears to have been in a resettlement camp in Wentorf, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Wentorf was a camp for Displaced Persons (DPs) and occupied buildings that had been barracks for the German Army (Wehrmacht). From there, he was sent to the United States in 1949, leaving Bremerhaven aboard the "General J H McRae". He went to live with relatives in Groton, in upstate New York, a short distance from Cornell University in Ithaca. He studied at the Cascadilla School, a preparatory school for Cornell University, to make up for his lost time in high school and to learn English.

Werner Seligmann (March 30, 1930 – November 12, 1998) was an architect, urban designer and educator.

Werner Seligmann was born on March 30, 1930, in Osnabrück, Germany. His father, Fritz, was born December 31, 1902, in Krefeld, Germany, survived a labor camp in Bielefeld and deportation to KZ Theresienstadt, Terezin in Czechoslovakia. He died March 10, 1971, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. His mother, Charlotte Louise (Czermin), was Fritz's second wife and was born June 1, 1902. She died in KZ Ravensbrück, Germany, about 1944. Fritz was Jewish but Charlotte was not. His sister, Helga Seligmann, was born in Osnabrück September 17, 1931, and died during an Allied bombing raid November 21, 1944, in Kinderheim am Scholerberg, Osnabrück From his father, who was a violinist with the Osnabrück city orchestra (Osnabrück Stadttheater), Seligmann inherited a lifelong love of music and the arts in general. He wanted to be a painter, but his father said he should have a better-paying occupation. He was apprenticed to an architect in Münster, Germany.