Architect of Coronado Bridge dies at age 94

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – Robert Mosher, the La Jolla architect who designed the Coronado Bridge, died July 26 at 94.

According to the architect's website, the two-mile bride opened in August of 1969 and a year later won, "Most Beautiful Bridge" Award from the American Institute of Steel Construction.

Construction took two years and cost $5 million. 

The bridge's signature curves were designed to leave enough room for Navy ships to pass underneath, according to the website.

"I was only the architect and designer who figured out the way it looked, I didn’t figure out how much steel to put in the pylons, but I can take credit for the look of it." Mosher once said of the bridge.

Mosher is also known for designing the La Jolla Playhouse, the west wing of the San Diego Museum of Art and the NBC Building in downtown San Diego.

He also oversaw the expansion of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. 

“His view of modernism was much more about the quality of the human spirit,” said Larry Hoeksema, principal and former president of Architects Mosher Drew, the firm Mosher founded with business partner Roy Drew in San Diego in 1948. “The human element and how people interact and move through and around [a building] was something they were very much concerned about.”

Mosher died of natural causes in his La Jolla apartment Sunday and is survived by his wife, a son and daughter from two previous marriages, a granddaughter and brother.