Architect César Pelli looks a lot like his most famous structures: tall, elegant, refined. He has designed landmark buildings around the world. The Petronas Towers rise like a shimmering, stainless-steel duo over Kuala Lumpur; Canary Wharf commands the skyline of London’s bustling business precinct; a new tower on New York’s Lexington Avenue appears to float on planes of light; the Cheung Kong Center tower in Hong Kong glows like a lantern. And this fall, two new performing arts centers designed by Pelli open their doors.

Pelli, who will turn 80 in October, is a native of Tucumán, Argentina. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1952 to continue his architectural studies at the University of Illinois. Soon after graduating he interned with legendary architect Eero Saarinen, working on the design of such modern icons as the birdlike TWA Terminal at JFK Airport. He sharpened his design skills in California as a leading architect for such firms as Gruen Associates, where he designed the incredible “Blue Whale” – better known as the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. Yale picked him in 1977 to be the Dean of its architecture school, and Pelli opened his own office on Chapel Street in New Haven, CT, where he continues to practice today.

César Pelli is an architect’s architect. Impatient with esoteric theory, he is passionate about the craft of making architecture, how buildings affect people, and how architecture reflects our culture. His buildings are not only beautifully put together – they also use some of the latest materials, such as glass that is painted to appear like birch trees or shimmering water, which you can see in Pelli’s newly opened Central Library in Minneapolis, MN. For the National Museum of Art in Osaka, Japan, most of which is underground, Pelli designed a dramatic entrance that is pure sculpture, rendered in brush-finished stainless steel and fritted glass.

Skyscrapers, libraries, museums, theaters, university buildings, cultural centers, airports, master plans – as Pelli’s works have dotted the globe, his list of accolades has grown long. The American Institute of Architects cited him as one of the ten most influential living architects, and in 1995 presented Pelli with the AIA Gold Medal – the profession’s highest honor. His buildings have won scores of design awards, and he keeps up a breathtaking pace of lectures, interviews, and site visits to buildings of his design going up around the world.

This fall will be a busy one for Pelli, as two performing arts centers that he designed – one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast – are unveiled at gala openings. He is perhaps best known for his stylish skyscrapers, but this architect revels in designing grand spaces for public gatherings. He has a long track record: The Winter Garden in lower Manhattan’s World Financial Center recalls Joseph Paxton’s great Crystal Palace, constructed in London more than a century-and-a-half ago (Paxton is one of Pelli’s architectural heroes; he has researched and written extensively on the Victorian engineer’s work). The Winter Garden was followed by a string of striking public venues: the Aronoff Center for the Arts in Cincinnati, OH; the Schuster Performing Arts Center in Dayton, OH; the Overture Center in Madison, WI; and Founders Hall in Charlotte, NC, among others.

“Wonderful, urban places are so because they achieve a certain intensity of potentials that make it wonderful to be there,” observes Pelli. “Those qualities are at the heart of what makes our built environments good or bad,” he adds, “spaces for activities and intense urban life.”

The best is yet to come. In Costa Mesa, CA, Pelli’s new addition to the Orange County Performing Arts Center will open in mid-September. The new $200-million, white-limestone-and-steel building – with a serpentine glass facade 300 feet long and 87 feet high – includes the 2,000-seat Segerstrom Concert Hall (the new home of the Pacific Symphony), the 500-seat Samueli Theater and an education center. The new facility, together with the existing Segerstrom Hall and the expanded South Coast Repertory Theater, is organized around a large arts plaza designed by Peter Walker and Partners. The centerpiece of this 46,000-square-foot plaza is a specially commissioned piece, Connector, by sculptor Richard Serra.

The plaza, created by closing an existing street, will be the setting for public art, live jazz, community and family events, and special performances. Pelli says that this grand public gesture will heighten the excitement of attending events. “You will be able to look across the plaza and recognize your friends also attending a performance,” says Pelli, underscoring the importance of these cultural happenings.

The following month, Pelli’s $412-million Carnival Center for the Performing Arts will open. Situated on Biscayne Boulevard, the granite-and-glass Center creates a new heart for the city’s cultural events, boasting one of the largest performing arts centers in the country, with three separate theaters: the 2,400-seat Ziff Ballet Opera House; the 2,200-seat Knight Concert Hall; and an intimate 200-seat Studio Theater. Also part of the complex is the Peacock Education Center and a restored landmark 1929 Art Deco Tower.

For Pelli, one of the most exciting features of the Carnival Center is the Plaza for the Arts, which stretches across Key Biscayne Boulevard connecting the Center’s two wings, and will be appointed with palm trees and commissioned works of art. On the north side of the 57,000-square-foot plaza is an elevated walkway, across which patrons of the arts can stroll between the ballet opera house and the concert hall.

“That bridge has a huge affect on defining the spatial form of the plaza,” Pelli explains, “and completing its form. You sense that you are in a contained space.” Pelli points out that local arts groups and community organizations will be able to use the plaza for pubic art events, which adds vitality and significance to the Center.

“One of the advantages of having all of these venues in one place is that the excitement is magnified,” Pelli says. “The experiences are communal, shared with other people, which makes them all the more intense.”

I once asked César, with so many different works of architecture to his credit, what commission he would most covet. His answer was that an architect could hope for no greater commission than a “contemporary cathedral.” What he meant is not necessarily a religious building, but one of such civic and cultural importance that it touches everyone. Pelli’s performing arts centers are surely the cathedrals of our time.

The Carnival Center for the Performing Arts Ziff Ballet Opera House (top left), with its acoustical dome (top right), and lobby featuring Pelli’s glass curtain walls and a terrazzo floor mural by José Bedia (center). Bottom left: the Ziff Ballet Opera House, overlooking the Knight Concert Hall.