Harvard Magazine Obituaries — Graduate Schools
Richard W. Snibbe, Graduate School of Design 1939-1941, died October 28 in San Francisco. While coaching Harvard’s lacrosse team, he made waves when he refused to play against the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis unless they granted Harvard’s African-American team members equal privileges in the dorms and dining halls. From 1951 to 1956 he was an associate in the Washington, D.C., architectural firm of Edward Stone. There he helped design the Indian Embassy, in particular its distinctive concrete latticework “screen”; the building won the AIA Gold Medal Award. In 1958 he cofounded the firm of Ballard, Todd & Snibbe. A champion of classic, socially oriented modern architecture, in the 1980s he cofounded the Congress of International Modern Architects. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and the author of two books, Small Commercial Buildings and The New Modernist in World Architecture. He leaves two sons, John and Paul.
