# 1963 in architecture

The year 1963 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.

## Events

* October 28 – Work begins on demolition of Pennsylvania Station (New York City), surface buildings designed by McKim, Mead and White in 1910, a key influence on the historic preservation movement.
* Work begins on the Ostankino Tower, designed by Nikolai Nikitin.
* Work begins on the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, designed by Denys Lasdun.
* Team 4 architectural practice established by Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and their respective wives.
* The avant-garde architectural collective Archigram stages the Living Cities exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

## Buildings and structures
### Buildings opened

* February – Springs Mills Building on Manhattan, New York, United States, designed by Harrison & Abramovitz.
* March 7 – MetLife Building on Manhattan, New York, United States, designed by Richard Roth.
* June 22 – Arrábida Bridge, Douro river, Portugal, designed by Edgar Cardoso.
* October 15 – Berliner Philharmonie concert hall, designed by Hans Scharoun.
* November – Phoenix Life Insurance Company Building in Hartford, Connecticut, designed by Max Abramovitz.

### Buildings completed

* St John the Baptist's Church, Ermine, Lincoln, Lincoln, England, designed by Sam Scorer.
* Großer Sendesaal (concert hall) of Hanover Broadcast Station in West Germany, designed by Dieter Oesterlen.
* Bankside Power Station in London, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott. (Adaptive reuse as the Tate Modern art museum in 2000.)
* Vickers Tower on Millbank in London, designed by Ronald Ward and Partners.
* Alexander Fleming House, Blocks A-C, at Elephant and Castle in London, designed by Ernő Goldfinger.
* Darwin Building, Royal College of Art, South Kensington, London, designed by H. T. and Elizabeth Cadbury-Brown, Sir Hugh Casson and Robert Goodden.
* University of Leicester Engineering Building, England, designed by James Stirling and James Gowan.
* Alpha House, Coventry, England, built, a 17-storey residential tower block, the world's first multi-storey building erected by the "jack block" system devised by Felix Adler of Richard Costain (Construction) Ltd.
* Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
* Core buildings of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, designed by Denys Lasdun.
* Salk Institute, by Louis I. Kahn, at La Jolla, California.
* Exxon Building in Houston, Texas.
* Hotel Ivoire, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, designed by Moshe Mayer.
* Jamaraat Bridge, Mina, Saudi Arabia.
* Kobe Port Tower in Kobe, Japan.
* Bunshaft Residence (sometimes called the Travertine House) in East Hampton, New York: designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft for himself and his wife, and his only residential project.
* Sadovnichesky Bridge, Vodootvodny Canal, Moscow.

## Awards

* American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
* AIA Gold Medal – Alvar Aalto
* RAIA Gold Medal – Arthur Stephenson
* RIBA Royal Gold Medal – William Holford
* Grand Prix de Rome, architecture – Jean-Louis Girodet

## Publications

* John Summerson – The Classical Language of Architecture (BBC).

## Births

* October 16 – Filipe Oliveira Dias, Portuguese architect and writer
* October 17 – Alejandro Zaera Polo, Spanish architect and teacher
* June 24 – Benedetta Tagliabue, Italian architect based in Barcelona

## Deaths

* February 11 – Elmar Lohk, Estonian architect (born 1901)
* February 21 – Philip Hepworth, English architect (born 1890)
* March 17 – Adalberto Libera, Italian modernist architect (born 1903)
* March 22 – Herbert James Rowse, English architect working in Liverpool (born 1887)
* April 5 – J. J. P. Oud, Dutch architect (born 1890)
* April 23 – Adrian Gilbert Scott, English church architect, grandson of Sir George Gilbert Scott (born 1901)