Gwathmey was perhaps best known for the 1992 renovation of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Charles Gwathmey attended the University of Pennsylvania and received his Master of Architecture degree in 1962 from Yale School of Architecture,[1] where he won both the William Wirt Winchester Fellowship as the outstanding graduate and a Fulbright Grant.

When he did take the professional licensing exam, he was surprised to see a multiple-choice question on the test that asked "Which of these is the organic house?"

Gwathmey was the Spring 2005 William A. Bernoudy Resident in Architecture at the American Academy in Rome[2][3] Gwathmey's firm designed the Museum Of Contemporary Art of North Miami, Florida in 1995, and the Astor Place Tower, a 21-story condominium project in Manhattan's East Village, in 2005.

[2] Gwathmey died of esophageal cancer on August 3, 2009, one day before the opening of Bay Lake Tower, one of his projects.

[2] Gwathmey was the only architect named in the Leadership in America issue of Time magazine.