Edgar Kaufmann Jr. (April 9, 1910 – July 31, 1989) was an American architect, lecturer, author, and an adjunct professor of architecture and art history at Columbia University.^[1]

He was the son of Edgar J. Kaufmann, a wealthy Pittsburgh businessman and philanthropist who owned Kaufmann's department store, and his wife Liliane. Kaufmann Jr. attended the School for Arts and Crafts at the Austrian Museum of Applied Art in Vienna, in the late 1920s. He studied painting and typography for three years with Victor Hammer in Florence.^[1]

After reading Frank Lloyd Wright's autobiography, Kaufmann decided to become a resident apprentice in architecture at Wright's Taliesin East School and Studio in 1933.^[2] He was asked to leave in 1935 because of his homosexuality, possibly by Wright himself.^[3]

According to fallingwater.org, he was particular about spelling his name "Edgar Kaufmann jr."^[4][5]

When he left Wright's Taliesin Fellowship in 1935, he joined the family business and became merchandise manager for home furnishings, and in 1938, was elected secretary of the Kaufmann Department Stores, Inc.^[6] In 1940, Edgar wrote to Alfred Barr of the Museum of Modern Art, proposing the Organic Design in Home Furnishings Competition, won by Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen. That same year, he left Kaufmann's to join the Museum of Modern Art.^[1]

He served with the Army Air Forces from 1942 to 1946 during World War II. Afterwards, he was director of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City.^[7] While there, he had a relationship with the architecture curator, John McAndrew.^[3] Edgar's greatest accomplishment during his tenure at MOMA was the 'Good Design' program of 1950 to 1955, in which the museum joined with the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, promoting good design in household objects and furnishings.^[8] His Edgar J. Kaufmann Foundation also hired Finnish architect Alvar Aalto to design the Kaufmann Conference Center in New York City, which was completed in 1964.^[9]

From 1963 to 1986, Kaufmann was an adjunct professor of Architecture and Art History at Columbia University. He authored several books on Wright architecture and modern design,^[10][11] and was a contributor to Arts + Architecture journal and Encyclopædia Britannica.^[1]

Kaufmann, who did not marry and had no children, died in 1989.^[1] His ashes were scattered around the property at Fallingwater^[12] by his partner Paul Mayén,^[1][13] with whom he shared his life since the 1950s.^[14] Mayén oversaw the building of the Fallingwater pavilion from 1979 to 1981, which houses the café, gift store, and visitor’s center at Fallingwater. Following his own death in 2000, Mayén's ashes were also scattered at Fallingwater in accordance with his wishes.^[14][15][16]

Kaufmann was among the public figures at the core of the effort to save Olana, the home of Frederic Edwin Church, before it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965 and subsequently became a New York State Historic Site.^[17][18]

• Fallingwater