Metropolis editor-in-chief Susan S. Szenasy remembers the magazine’s founding publisher, 1942-2014.
Yesterday, March 19, Horace Havemeyer III, Metropolis’s founding publisher passed away peacefully at his home in New York City. Death released him from the suffering brought on by complications from CIDP, a chronic neurological disorder that rendered him quadriplegic in mid-2011. He was 72.
These are the facts. But the man who founded Metropolis (Bellerophon Publications) in 1981 with the intent of creating smart, relevant, and game changing conversations about the designed environment, at all scales—from the smallest object to the largest urban settlement—was much more than those cold facts. He loved design. He respected architecture. He was an avid reader with a phenomenal memory. He was fascinated by the creative mind. He read broadly, including a lot of history. He was an opera fan, and an expert sailor. He was the first reader of all Metropolis articles, and I looked forward to his honest, critical reaction to them. He was rarely wrong. Horace was a cultured man who always wanted to know more about the world we live in.