Born in
Barcelona,
Catalonia, Spain, Sert showed keen interest in the works of his uncle, the painter
Josep Maria Sert, and of
Antoni Gaudí. He studied architecture at the Escola Superior d'Arquitectura in Barcelona and set up his own studio in 1929. That same year Sert moved to Paris, in response to an invitation from
Le Corbusier to work for him (without payment). Returning to Barcelona in 1930, he continued his practice there until 1937. During the 1930s, Sert co-founded the group
GATCPAC (''Grup d'Artistes i Tècnics Catalans per al Progrés de l'Arquitectura Contemporània'', i.e. Group of Catalan Artists and Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture), which later was the prominent association, with the addition of the western and north groups, of the
GATEPAC (Grupo de Artistas y Técnicos Españoles para el Progreso de l'Arquitectura Contemporánea), which was in turn the Spanish branch of the ''
Congrès International d'Architecture Moderne'' (CIAM). Sometime later, Sert became President of CIAM (1947–1956). He created several outstanding pieces of modern architecture during this period, such as the week-end house in
El Garraf, Catalonia (1935), the Central Dispensary of Barcelona (1935) and the Master Plan for the City of Barcelona (1933–1935). From 1937 through 1939, Sert lived in Paris, where he designed the Spanish Republic's pavilion at the
Paris Exposition of 1937. For the artistic content of the building, Sert called on his artist friends
Pablo Picasso,
Joan Miró, and
Alexander Calder. Picasso's contribution was
Guernica, which became the focal attraction of Sert's design.
Career in the United States After the fascist forces of
Francisco Franco won the
Spanish Civil War in 1939, Sert, like most members of GATCPAC, was disqualified from practicing as an architect in Spain, and went into exile in the United States, where he lived until Franco's death, when he returned to Barcelona. In his first years in New York City he worked with the Town Planning Associates, carrying out numerous urban plans for cities in South America. in Barcelona with sculptural roof forms designed to bring natural light into the galleries In 1952, Sert held a one-year Visiting Professorship at
Yale University. The following year he became Dean of the
Harvard Graduate School of Design (1953–1969). There, Sert initiated the world's first degree program in
urban design; integrated the programs of architecture, planning, landscape and urban design, and taught many of today's leading architects. During this period, he served on the advisory board of the newly created
Graham Foundation in Chicago, Illinois. In 1955, Sert founded a studio in
Cambridge, Massachusetts which in 1958 became a partnership with Huson Jackson and Ronald Gourley. Joseph Zalewski was the Associate and continued to be in the firm Sert, Jackson and Associates founded in 1963. The studio designed many well-known projects including the
Maeght Foundation (1959–1964) in southern France, the Fundació Miró (museum) in Barcelona (1975) and quite a few buildings for
Harvard University, including Holyoke Center (1958–1965), the
Harvard Science Center (1969–1972),
Peabody Terrace (apartments, 1962–1964), and the
Center for the Study of World Religions at the
Harvard Divinity School. Among other notable buildings in the vicinity are a complex at
Boston University including its
law school,
student union, and
main library (1960–1965), Sert's home in Cambridge, as well as the Martin Luther King elementary school (1968–1971), located across from Peabody Terrace. In New York, he completed the Eastwood and Westview apartments on
Roosevelt Island, NYC (1976). In 1961, Sert brought
Le Corbusier to the United States to design the
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at
Harvard, and a gallery in the Carpenter Center is now named in Sert's honor. In 1981, he received the
AIA Gold Medal.
The art world Josep Lluis Sert counted amongst his close friends the likes of
Alexander Calder,
Joan Miró,
Georges Braque, and
Marc Chagall, for whom he designed studios and homes. He brought art into the Harvard curriculum through his commissioning of the
Carpenter Center and his subsequent avid support for it. His design for the
Fondation Maeght in
Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, the
Fundació Joan Miró in
Barcelona and the Museum School were more than an architect-client relationship, they were partnerships in the discovery of modern art. Among Sert's students and colleagues in his studio were leading and past master architects from the United States, Spain, France, Bolivia and Brazil, Venezuela, as well as
Dolf Schnebli of Switzerland,
Fumihiko Maki of Japan, and
Christopher Charles Benninger of India. ==Major buildings and projects==