Bernard Zehrfuss

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Bernard Louis Zehrfuss (October 20, 1911, Angers - July 3, 1996) was a French architect.

Zehrfuss attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from the age of 18 and won its most prestigious award, the Prix de Rome in 1939. His first major design was the Sébastien Charléty Stadium in Paris, 1939. Prevented from traveling to Rome by the war, he became an assistant in Eugene Beaudouin's Marseilles workshop, obtained a visa for Spain and engaged in the Free French Forces.

In French-controlled Algeria and Tunisia from 1943 through 1953, Zehrfuss was appointed to office in the Directorate of Public Works and built many well-received housing projects, schools and hospitals.

On return to France he was made Chief Architect of Public Buildings and National Palaces and participated in two high-profile projects: the 1953 European headquarters of UNESCO, a collaboration with Marcel Breuer and Pier Luigi Nervi, and the 1958 Center of New Industries and Technologies, one of the first buildings of La Défense. These stand among many French housing projects and embassies through the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1983, Zehrfuss was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, where he became the perpetual secretary in 1994, succeeding Marcel Landowski.