Pritzker Architecture Prize, so-called the Nobel of architecture, went to American architect Thom Mayne. Mr. Mayne, 61, is the first American to win the prize in 14 years.
The selection jury cited the diversity of Mayne's designs, from a regional office for the California department of transportation in Los Angeles to a U.S. government building in San Francisco. Among his international projects are the ASE Design Center in Taipei, Taiwan, and Sun Tower in Seoul, South Korea.
Thom Mayne is a founder of the eternally cutting-edge SCI-Arc and a designer of domineering, difficult forms. "Thom Mayne sees architecture as a contact sport — a group activity that pushes physical limits", Pritzker juror Karen Stein said.
"I’ve always had resistance to closed things, versus asking more questions. I am interested in the dynamic of building, of leaving the spirit of construction alive in the building", Mayne said.
Thom Mayne received his undergraduate degree in 1968 from the University of Southern California, where he met the five other students and educators with whom he later founded the Southern California Institute of Architecture, or Sci Arc. In 1978, he received his master's degree from Harvard University. He has served on many faculties, including those of Columbia University, the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam, and the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. He currently holds a faculty position at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, while continuing to serve on the Board of Directors at Sci Arc.
Thom Mayne established his firm Morphosis in 1971. The first realised designs were the interior of the Kate Mantilini restaurant in 1987 and the Cedar Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Centre in 1987 in Los Angeles. Since then the firm has grown immensely and also became active outside California. Morphosis has participated in and won various international competitions, three of which will shortly be completed: the Diamond Ranch High School in California, the Alpe-Adria Hypothekenbank in Austria, and the University of Toronto Graduate/Second-Entry Residence in Toronto. Morphosis has received sixteen Progressive Architecture awards and twenty-seven AIA awards among numerous other honors.
Mayne's coming projects include the Olympic village being built in connection with New York City's 2012 Olympic bid. Another project, a nine-story building for the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York, will feature a central atrium with elevated bridges and walkways.
"My aim in architecture is to make every project as specific and as unique to the character of that project as possible. And so I start by asking a series of questions that have to do with the more idiosyncratic, the specific, the unique things that contribute to the nature of that project", Thom Mayne said.
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