(August 28, 1930 – October 3, 2022)
Harold Forster Van Dine, Jr. passed away peacefully in the care of Mitigare (https://mitigare.org) and his eldest daughter in his home of 30 years in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico on Monday, October 3, 2022, at the age of 92. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He was a son, brother, father and grandfather, a husband, friend, and colleague to many.
Harry won a full-tuition scholarship to Yale University, where he studied architecture, receiving a bachelor’s degree and a commission as an officer in the United States Navy in 1952. In 1958, after three years’ active service in the navy aboard the aircraft carrier USS Midway, he received his master’s degree from Yale School of Architecture, graduating at the top of his class and earning the William Wirt Winchester Traveling
Fellowship, the Silver Medal for Excellence in Architecture from the Connecticut AIA, and a traditional architectural school honor, the Henry Adams Book Award.
The following years, Harry was fully occupied in the professional practice of architecture as the prime designer in a succession of several significant Detroit-area firms, during which time buildings under his design direction won over 50 awards. His architectural career began in the office of Minoru Yamasaki, then Gunnar Birkerts and Frank Straub, and finally Harley, Ellington, Pierce, Yee Associates as senior VP of Architecture and Design. Harry was elected to the American Institute of Architects Fellows in 1980 and received gold medals from the Detroit chapter in 1987 and the Michigan AIA in 1991, both in the category of design. Harold also served as a lecturer and design critic for 12 years
in Architectural Design at Lawrence Institute of Technology (Southfield, Michigan) as well as design juries at the University of Detroit, the University of Michigan, and the Michigan State Board of Registration.
After retiring, Harry shifted the center of his artistic interests from architecture to painting. Whereas before the creativity was directed to the understanding and response to the physical and psychological needs for human beings, his paintings explored the physical and psychological elements of human beings. “There is just no feeling like successfully breathing life onto a flat canvas with a brush and a bit of pigment.”
His love for San Miguel and Mexico in general can be reflected and remembered forever in the two homes he designed and built here, one in Centro, on Sollano, two doors down from Parque Juarez, and the second, the first home to be built in Colonia Obraje. Most recently he completed construction on the boutique hotel/guesthouse The Brooklane San Miguel, which is located on Volanteros.
Harry developed a love for croquet while living here and was an active member of the Hope Harmon Croquet Club of San Miguel. He is represented in private collections in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Detroit, San Miguel de Allende, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, New York, Fort Lauderdale, Akron, Portland, and other cities. Many of his paintings and works of art are still in his home.
If your heart compels you, donations can be made to Mitigare (https://mitigare.org).
