...Gerald M. McCue, John T. Dunlop Professor of Housing Studies Emeritus at the GSD, first met Soltan around 1970 before joining Harvard in 1976.

“I had a chance to watch his teaching and the profound effect he had on students,” McCue said. “People were giving very practical problems...Soltan concentrated more on philosophical questions such as what should architecture be like and what language it speaks to people in.”

Former students of Soltan’s, many of whom have gone on to become famous figures in the world of architecture, also praised his dedication and freshness.

Michael E. Graves, an architect and designer and Schirmer professor of architecture, emeritus, at Princeton University, studied under Soltan in the late 1950s.

“Jerzy set himself apart from the other professors,” he wrote in an e-mail. “He established a relationship relative to each student’s work and knew all the issues of every project in the class. We always found Jerzy to be delightful, original and in the end, quite amusing.”

Another one-time student of Soltan’s at the GSD, Alan S. Chimacoff, also an architect and designer and professor of architecture at Princeton, said he came to Harvard because of a previous meeting with Soltan that had “enchanted” him. He agreed that studying under Soltan had been a unique experience.

“When [professors] are people you care about and revere, you are affected by them for your whole life,” he said. “The design studio is hand-to-hand combat basically. You got to know him very quickly...he was a great, big, lanky Polish bird, flapping and demonstrative.”...