Gene Kaufman buys into Gwathmey Siegel

Gene Kaufman, CEO of his eponymous architecture firm and the mastermind behind more than two dozen hotels for New York City developer Sam Chang, has purchased a majority stake in Gwathmey Siegel & Associates, making it Gwathmey Siegel Kaufman & Associates from now on, according to the New York Times. Kaufman will serve as CEO of both firms, and Gene Kaufman Architect will retain its current name and operations. At Gwathmey Siegel, Kaufman will work alongside the 43-year-old firm’s co-founder, Robert Siegel, whose original partner, Charles Gwathmey, died in 2009. Together, Gwathmey and Siegel had designed Astoria’s Museum of the Moving Image, Midtown’s International Center of Photography and the new W hotels in both Hoboken and Lower Manhattan. “We wanted to increase the body of new work,” Siegel said of the new partnership. “Our design expertise combined with his development expertise will make projects more likely to happen economically but also be much more exciting from an architectural point of view.” [NYT]