The prominent figures from the worlds of kitchen and bath design, architecture, design media, education and related segments who died this year. By Dianne M. Pogoda

Ellen Cheever, CMKBD, ASID, CAPS, CLIPP, a major force in the residential design world for more a half-century, was a designer, author, educator and mentor. She was 71. Cheever was an influential figure in the 1980s in her role as Director of Educational Services for the NKBA, and as principal of Ellen Cheever & Associates. In 2018, She donated the body of her professional work to the Virginia Tech Apparel, Housing and Resource Management department, titled, “The Ellen Cheever Kitchen & Bath Collection 1971-2018.” The library is housed within the Virginia Tech Center for Real Life Design, on the campus in Blacksburg, Va. She was inducted into the Kitchen & Bath Industry Hall of Fame in 1992.

Paige Rense, 91, was the legendary editor of Architectural Digest, helming the magazine for 35 years. She was instrumental in growing — and ultimately transforming — AD. She served as editor in chief from 1975 to 2010, rising from executive editor, a role she assumed in the early Seventies. At the time, AD was more or less a quiet regional specialty publication, based in Southern California. But capitalizing on proximity — the magazine was headquartered on Wilshire Boulevard — and a keen appreciation for star power, Rense focused the magazine on celebrity homes. Ultimately, its pages overflowed with the magnificent dwellings of stars from the worlds of art, fashion, all quarters of design, business and many others, and catapulted AD to its place as an iconic resource documenting modern architecture and design.

Leon Zanger, 93, was a founder of the American stone and tile design resource Walker Zanger. Inspired by a lifelong passion for marble, he started the company in 1953 with partner Marvin Walker, importing marble from Portugal and pioneering the use of the material for tabletops. In 1963, Zanger began importing stone tiles to the U.S., targeting the residential market. The company grew from there, expanding with unique and unconventional materials that would revolutionize design possibilities for years to come.

Terence Riley, 66, was a chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He was also a founding partner of Keenan/Riley architects. After his 13-year tenure at MoMA, he was a teacher and director for the Miami Art Museum, now the Pérez Art Museum Miami. At MoMA, he staged blockbuster retrospectives on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and brought acclaim to international architects including Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron in the U.S.

Paulo Mendes da Rocha, 92, was an award-winning Brazilian architect whose honors included the Pritzker Architecture Prize, a RIBA Gold Medal, the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale, and the Praemium Imperiale.He was best known for a style of architecture known as “Brazilian Brutalism,” which was centered on the use of unadorned concrete. His first major work, in 1957, was the stark Paulistano Athletic Club, followed by dozens of other public and private structures in São Paulo. What set him apart, according to fellow architects and observers, was his ability to treat concrete and steel as delicate materials, often calling his work “concrete acrobatics.”

Dimitra M. Tangires, 65, was an instructor in the Department of Architecture & Interior Design in the School of Business, Computing and Technical Studies at Anne Arundel Community College, an NKBA Affiliated School, in Arnold, Md. Throughout her career, she was a staff designer in the commercial furniture sales and supply industry; an interior design coordinator at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and managed her own interior design practice. She was an allied member of the American Society of Interior Designers and served two terms on the Maryland State Board of Certified Interior Designers.

Art Gensler, 85, was an American architect, interior designer and founder of global architecture giant Gensler. He founded his practice in San Francisco in 1965 with his wife, the late Drue Gensler, and James Follett. Today, the firm operates 50 offices around the world and has an annual revenue of $1.5 billion. Among his most notable large-scale projects is the Shanghai Tower — at 2,073 feet high, the world’s second-tallest building — the long-term renovation of San Francisco International Airport, which lasted 35 years, the revamp of the JetBlue T5 terminal at John F Kennedy International Airport in 2004, and Apple’s first 100 stores.

Zeev Aram, 89, a British furniture and interior designer, was known for promoting many modernist and emerging designers at Aram, his famous London store that opened in the Sixties. One of his best-known classic designs is the glass Altra table, immortalized in a David Hockney painting. He also held the license to produce Eileen Gray’s furniture, and introduced legendary modernists including Marcel Breuer, Le Corbusier and Charlotte Periand to the British public.

Gottfried Böhm, 101, a German architect and eighth winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1985, was best known for his concrete structures in the Brutalist style. Many of his works were churches, and most were located throughout Germany. The Church of the Pilgrimage, in Neviges, is often cited as his masterpiece.

Owen Luder, 93, was a British architect and another luminary in the Brutalist school, and founder of his studio, the Owen Luder Partnership. He served as president of the Royal Institute of British Architects twice, from 1981 to 1983 and from 1995 to 1997, according to Dezeen magazine. He was known for his use of exposed concrete, sculptural form and buildings devoid of decoration — a prime example was the famous Trinity Square parking deck in Gateshead. Many of these buildings were considered controversial, and were torn down. Luder once told Dezeen that his studio “never set out to design Brutalist buildings… We designed them in concrete because that’s what was there,” he explained. “Bear in mind it was the Sixties, it was difficult to get steel, it was still rationed.”

Kristen Richards, 69, was the editor of the website ArchNewsNow (ANN) for almost 20 years, helping architects, architecture buffs and her fellow architecture writers keep tabs on what was happening around the world. At its peak, ANN, which was free, had some 15,000 subscribers globally. Richards curated articles about architecture from several hundred English-language publications in more than 20 countries for summary and distribution to her network, along with writing original articles. From 2003 to 2016, she was also editor in chief of Oculus, the quarterly journal of the AIA New York chapter. Before that, she spent 10 years as a writer and editor at Interiors magazine. She was a consultant on numerous books about architecture, was an honorary member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, and of the AIA.