http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/07/arts/design/bing-thom-canadian-architect-dies-at-75.html 2016-10-07 03:35:19 Bing Thom, Canadian Architect, Dies at 75 Mr. Thom had an eye for the whimsical and was dedicated to viewing each structure in relation to the surrounding community. === Bing Thom, a Canadian architect whose swooping, playful design for the The cause was a brain aneurysm, said Michael Heeney, a principal at Mr. Thom’s firm, Mr. Thom had major commissions in the United States and Asia, although he was best known for his buildings in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, where he lived. He took on projects ranging from He approached architecture holistically, weighing how his structures would fit within a community. “I sometimes analogize a city to a string of pearls,” he told The Before he took on Mr. Thom’s solution was to enclose the two theaters and add a third. He proposed a 200,000-square-foot structure that featured a soaring cantilevered roof over an undulating glass curtain wall. When it was completed in 2010, at a cost of $135 million, a critic for The Times compared it to a “three-ring circus under a big top.” The new enclosure cut down on the acoustical problems that had plagued the two theaters. The roof of one of the theaters became an elevated interior public space that allowed audience members views of the new interior landscape between the theaters. “Mr. Thom’s biggest achievement may be the third structure, the Kogod Cradle, a site for new and developing productions that is anything but a black box,” The Times wrote about the new theater, which was named after the philanthropist Robert Kogod. “An elliptical space paneled in dark-stained wood, it feels almost spiritual.” Arena Stage also embraced the surrounding community. “On one side of the building is a connection to the waterfront,” Mr. Thom said. “The other side is a connection to the subway. When the doors are open, people can treat the theater as part of the public circulation of the city. It’s not Balkanized private space.” Bing Wing Thom was born in Hong Kong on Dec. 8, 1940. He fled to Vancouver with his mother and siblings when Communist forces approached Hong Kong in 1949. His father stayed in China for about a decade, then joined them, only to die soon afterward. Mr. Thom received a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in 1966 and a master’s from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1969. He taught architecture at the University of Singapore, then went to Tokyo, where he studied under the Mr. Thom’s other notable projects included the Another of his best-known structures is the University of British Columbia’s That project risked creating an eyesore on the university’s verdant campus, so Mr. Thom camouflaged it with fir, rhododendron and cedar trees and draped the smaller drum with ivy vines so that it resembled a hill more than a bunker. Two of Mr. Thom’s ambitious Hong Kong projects, the Mr. Thom is survived by his wife, the former Bonnie Koo, and two brothers, Wayne and Gene.