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| David A. Morton | |
David A. Morton, a former associate publisher at Rizzoli International Publications in New York known for acquiring and editing books on architecture, died June 27 after being ill with lymphoma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 89.
He started his career as an editor for Charles Scribner's Sons. In 1970, he joined Progressive Architecture magazine, where eventually became executive editor. While at Progressive Architecture, Morton also acted as the executive editor for the first two issues of Oppositions, published in 1973 and 1974 by the Institute for Architecture and Urban Design.
He joined Rizzoli in 1987 and created an extensive program of publications about leading architects, from the avant-garde to the traditional, and generated a number of works of a theoretical and historic nature. Charles Miers, publisher of Rizzoli, said, "David helped make Rizzoli the preeminent publisher of architecture books. His intellectual curiosity, far-reaching vision, high standards, and the seeming ease with which he produced so many books are unmatched."
Morton's range of illustrated architecture books included works by well-known modern figures such as Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, I.M. Pei, Peter Eisenman, and Thom Mayne, among others. Morton also had an interest in classically-oriented work by such contemporary architects as Allen Greenberg, Duany Plater-Zyberk, Demetri Porphyrios, John Simpson, Quinlan Terry, and Robert A.M. Stern.
Under his guidance, Rizzoli also published substantive books on significant historic figures such as Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Le Corbusier, Louis Sullivan, Gunnar Asplund, and Carlo Scarpa. Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses, first published in 2005, is still a top-selling title.
In 2006, Morton received the Henry Hope Reed award from the Richard H. Driehaus Prize for his contributions to highlighting classical architecture. In 2009, Rizzoli's books devoted to both modern as well as classical styles earned Morton and Miers honors from the Sir John Soane's Museum Foundation in New York. Morton retired from Rizzoli in 2015.