Vito Acconci, 1940-2017

Acconci’s career began in the 1960s with a focus on performances and poetry, but he “later reinvented himself as an outré architect,” per an obituary at Art News. Born in the Bronx, he established Acconci Studio in Manhattan in 1988.
 
Acconci and Holl finished the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York’s Nolita neighborhood in 1993. To this day the institution holds exhibitions and other events in its narrow, tapered space with its distinctive hinged doors facing Kenmare Street.

Acconci later executed a number of public projects in New York, many as part of the city’s Percent for Art program; these include the Wave-A-Wall in Coney Island, Brooklyn, and the Waterfall Out & In at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, also in Brooklyn.
 
Most famous of his overseas projects was Murinsel, a steel-and-glass island built in Graz, Austria, as part of its European Capital of Culture celebrations in 2003. Sited in the middle of the Mur, the construction that serves as a theater, café and playground is reached by pedestrian bridges on opposite sides of the river.