Charles E. Dagit Jr., award-winning architect, civic leader, and champion sailor, has died at 80

Charles E. Dagit Jr., 80, of Gladwyne, celebrated architect, civic leader, author, teacher, dancer, and champion sailor, died Wednesday, March 27, of complications from pneumonia at Bryn Mawr Hospital.

Mr. Dagit knew by the time he reached high school that he was going to be an architect. His grandfather, father, two uncles, and four cousins were architects, too, and the family’s influence on the Philadelphia landscape is wide.

“Every male for three generations has become an architect,” Mr. Dagit told the Daily News in 1995. “When people hear ‘Dagit,’ they think ‘architect.’”

Mr. Dagit embraced his family tradition by studying with renowned architect Louis Kahn and other luminaries in the 1960s, and earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. He founded Dagit-Saylor Architects in 1970 and went on to win scores of awards and design more than 300 construction projects around the country, including his own award-winning home in Gladwyne, before retiring in 2007.

He was especially prolific on college campuses, and the Abington campus Physical Education Building and Snider Agricultural Arena at Pennsylvania State University are two of his most notable designs. He also planned libraries, dining halls, theaters, student centers, and education buildings of all kinds at Penn, Gwynedd Mercy, Shippensburg, and Holy Family Universities; Ursinus, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr Colleges; and many other schools.

Structures at the Philadelphia Zoo, Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Cherry Hill Mall, monastery of St. Clare in Newtown, and many other locations also bear his signature.

“He was an inspiration to all who knew him and had the opportunity to work with him,” a former colleague said in a tribute. Another colleague said: “He was such a pleasure to work with and a dedicated, talented architect who loved his profession passionately.”

Mr. Dagit built his own family home on a hillside in Gladwyne in the 1970s, and it won an award for excellence in design. He called the structure “a white piece of sculpture,” and added a Japanese Garden years later that was featured in The Inquirer in 2010.

Gregarious and insightful, he taught design at Drexel and Temple Universities, and Penn, and expressed great satisfaction when his students earned honors for their work. He also lectured at other schools and at conferences, and served for a decade as managing secretary of the John Stewardson Memorial Fellowship in Architecture.

He was a longtime national committee member and chair for the American Institute of Architects, president of the Philadelphia chapter in 1991, and board member of the Pennsylvania chapter from 2008 to 2010. He became the youngest architect at the time to join the AIA College of Fellows in 1983 and never ceased promoting the city and state chapters at national and international events.

He wrote articles for The Inquirer and other publications, and authored Louis I. Kahn Architect — Remembering the Man and Those Who Surrounded Him in 2013, and The Groundbreakers: Architects in American History — Their Places and Times in 2017. Both received critical praise.

Away from work, he served on boards at Penn, the Philadelphia Zoo, and other groups, and was president of the Gladwyne Civic Association in the 1980s and the Gladwyne Free Library in the 1990s. He was a lifelong sailor who won local races at the Jersey Shore and a 1972 national championship, and he and his wife, Alice, navigated exotic waters together around the world.

“He was driven and bold,” his wife said. “He would do things after other people said, ‘You can’t do that.’”

Charles Edward Dagit Jr. was born July 1, 1943, in Philadelphia. He grew up in Merion, went sailing with his father and others often as a boy, and graduated from Malvern Preparatory School in 1961.

He earned three degrees and won a traveling fellowship and two design competitions at Penn, and worked for Mitchell-Giurgola and his father’s firm after college before establishing Dagit-Saylor.

He took Alice Murdoch on their first date in 1962, and they married in 1967, and had sons Charles III and John. They lived in Center City and West Philadelphia before moving to Gladwyne.

Mr. Dagit played piano and painted, enjoyed golf and dancing, and he and his wife spent more than 60 years twirling to the Charleston, jitterbug, and Texas two step. “Charlie was a most remarkable person,” a friend said in a tribute. “Smart, talented, artistic, and funny. Just so exceptional.”

In addition to his wife and sons, Mr. Dagit is survived by four grandsons, two sisters, and other relatives. A sister died earlier.

Visitation with the family is to be from 10 to 11 a.m. Friday, April 12, at St. John Vianney Church, 350 Conshohocken State Rd., Gladwyne, Pa. 19035. A service is to follow.

Donations in his name may be made to St. Malachy School, Box 37012, Philadelphia, Pa. 19122; and Emergency Aid of Pennsylvania Foundation, 221 Conestoga Rd., Suite 300, Wayne Pa. 19087.