World renowned architect Art Gensler dies

Bay Area and world-renowned architect Art Gensler, whose firm designed the Chase Center and the Moscone Convention Center West, among other landmarks in San Francisco, died Monday, his firm announced.

He was 85. Gensler died peacefully at his home in Mill Valley.

“I like doing things that people use,” Gensler said in a video in memory of his life and the firm Gensler, which survives him.

“Design to me is really a big picture attitude,” he said. “How it’s going to interact with your surroundings and with the people who are going to use it.”

Gensler started the firm in San Francisco in 1965, with his wife Drue and James Follett, in one room with one draftsman and $200.

Now the firm is the biggest in the world, designing about the size of San Francisco every year.

“It’s a very big collective of the world’s best designers,” said firm spokeswoman Kim Beals, and everyone contributes.

Read more