Pritzker prize-winning architect lectures at SU School of Architecture

Pritzker prize-winning architect lectures at SU School of ArchitectureApril 11, 2007Mary Kate O’Brienmcobrien@syr.edu

Architect Thom Mayne, founder and principal of Morphosis, located in Santa Monica, Calif., will speak at the Syracuse University School of Architecture on Wednesday, April 25, at 4:30 p.m. in the main auditorium of the school’s home, The Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St. His lecture, “working progress #127,” is free and open to the public. Following the lecture, a reception will be held in the Architecture Gallery. For information on parking at The Warehouse, call (315) 443-8238.

Mayne is a graduate of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and holds a bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Southern California. He was a founder of the Southern California Institute of Architecture and has held teaching positions at Columbia University, Yale University, Harvard University, UCLA, the Berlage Institute in the Netherlands and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London.

His distinguished honors include architecture’s most prestigious award, the Pritzker Prize (2005); the 2000 American Institute of Architects/Los Angeles Gold Medal in Architecture; and the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome (1987). With Morphosis, Mayne has won numerous AIA awards and Progressive Architecture awards. Under his direction, the firm has been the subject of various group and solo exhibitions throughout the world, most notably at the Contemporary Art Institute in Cincinnati and the Walker Arts Institute in Minneapolis, and had a major retrospective at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) in 1999.

Mayne’s design philosophy arises from an interest in producing work with a meaning that can be understood by absorbing the culture for which it was made. For Morphosis, this reflects a design process intuitively embedded within an increasingly groundless modern society that is exemplified by the shifting landscape of Los Angeles. The group’s working method values contradiction, conflict and change, and understands each project as a dynamic entity.

Major projects include the Wayne L. Morris United States Courthouse, Eugene, Ore., 2006; University of Cincinnati, Student Recreation Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, 2006; Science Center School, Los Angeles, 2004; Caltrans District 7 Headquarters, Los Angeles, 2004; Hypo Alpe-Adria Center, Klagenfurt, Austria, 2002; University of Toronto Graduate House, Toronto, 2000; Diamond Ranch High School, Pomona 1999; and Sun Tower, Seoul, Korea, 1997.

Major projects in progress include New Academic Building, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, 2008; National Oceanic Atmospheric Association (NOAA) Satellite Operation Facility, Suitland, Md., 2007; Phare Tower, La Defense, France (The Lighthouse, “green” wind-powered office building, Paris,) 2012.

For more information, contact Mary Kate O’Brien, communications manager of the School of Architecture, at (315) 443-2388 or mcobrien@syr.edu.