Paul Marantz, a prominent architectural lighting designer who illuminated discos and skylines, libraries and hotels, museums and embassies, died on May 26 at his home in Manhattan. He was 87.

His projects included new buildings, including the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, and renovations of Carnegie Hall, Grand Central Terminal, the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library, and David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. Also Studio 54, the Palladium, and Times Square for New Year’s Eve in 1999.

It has been said that shoemakers’ children often go barefoot. Years ago, when the daughter of a family friend returned home after babysitting at the Marantz home, according to The New York Times, she told her parents, “I thought he was in the lighting business. I couldn’t find a good place to read.”