Gyo Obata

Gyo Obata
Gyo Obata in 2005
Born	(1923-02-28) February 28, 1923 (age 94) San Francisco, California, U.S
Occupation	Architect

Gyo Obata (born February 28, 1923) is an American architect, the son of painter Chiura Obata and his wife, Haruko Obata, a floral designer. In 1955, he co-founded global architectural firm HOK (formerly Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum). He lives in St. Louis, Missouri and still works in HOK's St. Louis office. He has designed several notable buildings, including the McDonnell Planetarium at the Saint Louis Science Center, the Independence Temple of the Community of Christ church and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Obata was born and raised in San Francisco. Due to his family's Japanese heritage, he was nearly interned with other Japanese-Americans during World War II. Though his family was sent to an internment camp, he avoided it by leaving the School of Architecture at the University of California-Berkeley to study architecture at Washington University in St. Louis the only university in the United States willing to accept Japanese nationals at that time. He earned his bachelor of architecture degree there in 1945.

He then studied under master Finnish architect Eero Saarinen at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, receiving his master's degree in architecture and urban design in 1946.

After serving in the U.S. Army from 1946–1947 and working as an architect in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill from 1947–1951, Obata returned to St. Louis in 1951 to join the firm of Minoru Yamasaki, designer of the World Trade Center towers. Four years later, in 1955, he joined architects George Hellmuth and George Kassabaum in establishing the St. Louis-based architecture firm Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum.