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Arthur Cotton Moore Has Died

International architect recognized for his contributions to architecture, master planning, furniture design, painting, and writing.

Preeminent Washington DC architect Arthur Cotton Moore died at his home on September 4th at the age of 87.

Moore achieved national and international recognition for his contributions to architecture, master planning, furniture design, painting, and writing. Born in D.C. to fifth-generation Washingtonians, Moore studied architecture at Princeton University before founding his own practice in 1965. 

Throughout his career, Moore became a champion of curvilinear “Industrial Baroque” challenges to the city’s box-like and staid vernacular architecture, an element he often decried as being “missing in modern design.”

Early projects, Georgetown’s Canal Square retrofit and Avon Place residences garnered award recognition from the AIA and Architectural Record, eventually leading to noteworthy commissions for the (now closed) Rizik’s boutique and Madeira School.

Moore was also known for the Washington Harbour development in Georgetown, the Goh Annex of the Phillips Collection, the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue, and the renovation of Washington D.C.'s tallest residential building, the Cairo Hotel.