1963 in architecture

Events

• October 28 – Work begins on demolition of Pennsylvania Station (New York City), surface buildings designed by McKim, Mead and White in 1910, a key influence on the historic preservation movement.
• Work begins on the Ostankino Tower, designed by Nikolai Nikitin.
• Work begins on the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, designed by Denys Lasdun.
• Team 4 architectural practice established by Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and their respective wives.
• The avant-garde architectural collective Archigram stages the Living Cities exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London.

Buildings and structures

Buildings opened

• February – Springs Mills Building on Manhattan, New York, United States, designed by Harrison & Abramovitz.
• March 7 – MetLife Building on Manhattan, New York, United States, designed by Richard Roth.
• June 22 – Arrábida Bridge, Douro river, Portugal, designed by Edgar Cardoso.
• October 15 – Berliner Philharmonie concert hall, designed by Hans Scharoun.
• November – Phoenix Life Insurance Company Building in Hartford, Connecticut, designed by Max Abramovitz.

Buildings completed

• St John the Baptist's Church, Ermine, Lincoln, Lincoln, England, designed by Sam Scorer.
• Großer Sendesaal of Hanover Broadcast Station in West Germany, designed by Dieter Oesterlen.
• Bankside Power Station in London, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott.
• Vickers Tower on Millbank in London, designed by Ronald Ward and Partners.
• Alexander Fleming House, Blocks A-C, at Elephant and Castle in London, designed by Ernő Goldfinger.
• Darwin Building, Royal College of Art, South Kensington, London, designed by H. T. and Elizabeth Cadbury-Brown, Sir Hugh Casson and Robert Goodden.
• University of Leicester Engineering Building, England, designed by James Stirling and James Gowan.
• Alpha House, Coventry, England, built, a 17-storey residential tower block, the world's first multi-storey building erected by the "jack block" system devised by Felix Adler of Richard Costain (Construction) Ltd.
• Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University, designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
• Core buildings of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, designed by Denys Lasdun.
• Salk Institute, by Louis I. Kahn, at La Jolla, California.
• Exxon Building in Houston, Texas.
• Hotel Ivoire, Abidjan, Ivory Coast, designed by Moshe Mayer.
• Jamaraat Bridge, Mina, Saudi Arabia.
• Kobe Port Tower in Kobe, Japan.
• Bunshaft Residence in East Hampton, New York: designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft for himself and his wife, and his only residential project.
• Sadovnichesky Bridge, Vodootvodny Canal, Moscow.

Awards

• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
• AIA Gold Medal – Alvar Aalto
• RAIA Gold Medal – Arthur Stephenson
• RIBA Royal Gold Medal – William Holford
• Grand Prix de Rome, architecture – Jean-Louis Girodet

Publications

• John Summerson – The Classical Language of Architecture.

Births

• October 16 – Filipe Oliveira Dias, Portuguese architect and writer
• October 17 – Alejandro Zaera Polo, Spanish architect and teacher
• June 24 – Benedetta Tagliabue, Italian architect based in Barcelona

Deaths

• February 11 – Elmar Lohk, Estonian architect
• February 21 – Philip Hepworth, English architect
• March 17 – Adalberto Libera, Italian modernist architect
• March 22 – Herbert James Rowse, English architect working in Liverpool
• April 5 – J. J. P. Oud, Dutch architect
• April 23 – Adrian Gilbert Scott, English church architect, grandson of Sir George Gilbert Scott