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19 grandchildren; and five great- grandchildren. He was preceded in death by a son, Jae, and two sisters, Mabel Creel and Phyllis Tippet.
Mr. Portman attended the United States Naval Academy in 1944 and 1945, then transferred to the Georgia Institute
of Technology, where he earned a degree in architecture in 1950. After an apprenticeship with an Atlanta architect, he opened his own practice in 1953.
He struggled at first, designing drugstores and YMCAs.
A growing respect for the hard economic realities of architecture prompted
Mr. Portman’s first venture into real estate, financing a small medical building he designed. The deal fell through, but
Mr. Portman was convinced that development was the key to success in architecture.
In 1956, he and H. Griffith Edwards, a former Georgia Tech professor, became partners. Mr. Portman designed buildings and Mr. Edwards, 20 years older, managed construction until he retired in 1968.
They took joint credit for many projects, including the Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Mr. Portman’s creative genesis.
In the 1980s, Mr. Portman developed properties in Shanghai, Singapore and South Korea. By the end of the decade, with capital drying up and regulators tightening lending requirements, his empire was $2 billion in debt. He surrendered a controlling interest in the Peachtree Center, the keystone of his holdings.
But in 1991, the lenders let him retain most of his properties and provided millions of dollars in new capital in exchange for 8 percent of Mr. Portman’s assets. He was soon on his feet again, completing the huge, multiuse Shanghai
Centre and properties in Beijing; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Mumbai, India.
Mr. Portman rarely attended public events, though he accepted many awards in person and gave parties for hundreds.
He painted abstracts, created sculptures and designed furniture at a beach house he built on Sea Island, Ga. He co-wrote several books, including “The Architect as Developer” (1976, with Jonathan Barnett), and was the focus of a 2011 documentary by Ben Loeterman, “John Portman:
A Life of Building."
At 86, he was still running John Portman & Associates. “A fish got to swim and
a bird got to fly,” he told The Times in his Southern Comfort drawl. “I’m here six days a week, and it’d be seven if I didn’t make
a commitment to my wife to take a day off.” He never retired. ■
The Marriott Marquis in Times Square. One critic called it a “cold, grim place” and wrote that “to the rest of New York, this building turns a harsh concrete wall.” Credit Robert Caplin for The New York Times
Mr. Portman in his Atlanta office in 2011. “Anyone can build a building and put rooms in it,” he said. “But we should put human beings at the head
of our thought processes. You want to hopefully spark their enthusiasm.” Credit T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times
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