As part of our ongoing 2021 review, Dezeen remembers the architects and designers who passed away this year, including designer Virgil Abloh and architects Helmut Jahn and Art Gensler.
Other legends who died in 2021 include architects Owen Luder and Paulo Mendes da Rocha and fashion designer Alber Elbaz.
Here we remember 12 of the greats we lost in 2021.

Virgil Abloh
Having originally trained as an architect, American-Ghanaian designer Virgil Abloh transformed the fashion industry by merging streetwear culture with luxury fashion and products. Abloh had previously worked as an artistic director for Kanye West before founding his own brands including streetwear label Pyrex Vision and luxury brand Off-White.
In 2017 he became French fashion house Louis Vuitton's first Black creative director and showed his debut collection for the house at the Palais-Royale gardens in 2018. He passed away in November of this year after a private battle with cancer. Find out more about Virgil Abloh ?

Photo is by Ingrid von Kruse
Helmut Jahn
Architect Helmut Jahn, known for numerous buildings across Chicago including the postmodern James R Thompson Center, was killed in a bicycle crash near his home in Campton Hills, a suburb of Chicago, in May 2021.
Born in Germany in 1940, Jahn began studying architecture at the Technical University of Munich. After emigrating to the US to study at the Illinois Institute of Technology, he left the school in 1967 without a degree and joined American archite...