Gordon Bunshaft FAIA (May 9, 1909 – August 6, 1990) was an American architect, a leading proponent of modern design in the mid-twentieth century.

His notable buildings include Lever House in New York, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the National Commercial Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 140 Broadway (Marine Midland Grace Trust Co.), and Manufacturers Hanover Trust Branch Bank in New York.

After his traveling scholarships, Bunshaft worked briefly for Edward Durell Stone and the influential industrial designer Raymond Loewy.

Reflecting on his brief stint ("about two or three months") with Loewy, Bunshaft told an interviewer for the Chicago Architects Oral History Project, "I didn’t like it there.

"[4] In 1937, he joined Skidmore, Owings & Merrill [SOM], where he remained for 42 years (with a hiatus for his service in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II) until he retired in 1979.

[When onyx of sufficient quality proved impossible to acquire, Bunshaft compromised on a stratum of white marble “that was translucent.”] When the sun pours in, it’s quite nice with the rich books.

"It had his Miròs, Picassos, Moores, and Dubuffets and was surrounded by a remarkable landscape created by [Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s] Joanna Diman.

The late Lewis Mumford described Lever House...in glowing terms, 'It says all that can be said, delicately, accurately, elegantly, with surfaces of glass, with ribs of steel...an impeccable achievement.

But he closed his career with a final skyscraper, a 27-story triangular office tower of travertine for the National Commercial Bank in Jeddah with huge loggias that he called 'gardens in the air.'

It was an aggressively sculptural but brilliantly inventive project that ended Mr. Bunshaft's active years on a note of high creativity.

Avid collectors of contemporary art, the couple owned many major pieces, including works by Joan Miró, Dubuffet, Giacometti, Léger and Noguchi.

[9] He died of cardiovascular arrest in 1990, at the age of 81,[3] and is buried next to his wife and parents in the Temple Beth El cemetery on Pine Ridge Road in Cheektowaga, New York.

'I suppose you do that postmodernist shit,' he reportedly told a young employee recently moved to SOM’s New York office from Washington, D.C.

"[24] Yet Adams discovered, in Bunshaft's private correspondence with artists whose work he admired, another, more vulnerable side of the man, poles apart from his legendary brusqueness.

"His extensive correspondence with [ Henry Moore and Jean Dubuffet ], preserved at the Avery Library, is both playful and witty, describing cheerful conversations, and looking forward to further jovial meetings," says Adams.

"In November 1972, he wrote tenderly to Dubuffet after the installation of his Group of Three Trees in front of Chase Manhattan in New York: 'I enjoyed your visit here tremendously.