Denise Scott Brown, Hon. FAIA, and Robert Venturi, FAIA, were announced the winners of the 2016 AIA Gold Medal Award.
The award, voted on by the AIA’s Board of Directors, is the highest award the association can offer to an architect, and it “acknowledges a significant body of work that has had a lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture,” according to a statement.
Scott Brown and Venturi, a team that has been married since 1967, have influenced up-and-coming architects over the years through their built work and writings.
Some notable projects that their firm, VSBA Architects and Planners, have worked on are the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, the The Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London, the Provincial Capital Building in Toulouse, France, the Seattle Art Museum, and buildings for several universities, including Brown, Ohio State, and Yale.
Venturi wrote the book Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture in 1966, and worked with Scott Brown and architect Steven Izenour on Learning from Las Vegas in 1972. The pair also wrote Architecture as Signs and Systems: for a Mannerist Time in 2004.
“This recognition will resonate with generations of architects,” 2015 AIA President Elizabeth Chu Richter, FAIA, said in a statement. “What Denise and Bob have done for the profession far exceeds the completion of a great building or two. Through a lifetime of inseparable collaboration, they changed the way we look at buildings and cities. Anything that is great in architecture today has been influenced in one way or another by their work."
The duo has won 17 state and local AIA awards and nine national AIA awards. In 1991, Venturi won the Pritzker Architecture Prize but Scott Brown was excluded; they sought to have Scott Brown honored retroactively in 2013. They will receive the 2016 Gold Medal at the AIA convention in Philadelphia in May.
Related Stories
| May 28, 2014
KPF's dual towers in Turkey will incorporate motifs, symbols of Ottoman Empire
The two-building headquarters for Turkey’s largest and oldest financial institution, Ziraat Bank, is inspired by the country’s cultural heritage.
| May 28, 2014
B.R. Fries completes medical center focused on male health
Occupying the building’s entire second floor, the male-centric center is honeycombed with examination and consultation rooms, as well as areas for noninvasive testing.
| May 28, 2014
Moshe Safdie's twin residential towers in Singapore will be connected by 'sky pool' 38 stories in the air [slideshow]
Moshe Safdie's latest project, a pair of 38-story luxury residential towers in Singapore, will be linked by three "sky garden" bridges, including a rooftop-level bridge with a lap pool running the length between the two structures.
| May 27, 2014
Supergreen Venter lab displayed in new walk-through video
ZGF Architects' La Jolla building for genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter and his nonprofit research organization aims to be the first net-zero energy, carbon-neutral biological lab.
| May 27, 2014
America's oldest federal public housing development gets a facelift
First opened in 1940, South Boston's Old Colony housing project had become a symbol of poor housing conditions. Now the revamped neighborhood serves as a national model for sustainable, affordable multifamily design.
| May 27, 2014
One World Trade Center cuts rents due to sluggish activity
Sluggish economy and lackluster leasing force developer The Durst Organization and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to reduce asking rents by nearly 10% to $69/sf.
| May 27, 2014
Fire Rated Glass contributes to open lab environment at JSNN
Openness and transparency were high priorities in the design of the Joint School of Nanoscience & Nanoengineering within the Gateway University Research Park in Greensboro, N.C. Because the facility’s nanobioelectronics clean room houses potentially explosive materials, it needed to be able to contain flames, heat, and smoke in the event of a fire. SPONSORED CONTENT
| May 27, 2014
What are your services worth?
The price, cost, and value of design services are explored in a recent Design Intelligence article authored by Scott Simpson, a senior fellow of the Design Futures Council. Value, he explains, represents the difference between “price” and “cost.” SPONSORED CONTENT
| May 27, 2014
Contractors survey reveals improving construction market
The construction industry is on the road to recovery, according to a new survey by Metal Construction News. Most metrics improved from the previous year’s survey, including a 19.4% increase in the average annual gross contracting sales volume. SPONSORED CONTENT
| May 27, 2014
How to develop a dynamic referral system
Compelling your clients to provide you with quality referrals is one of the best ways to build a successful business. Here are ways to ‘train’ your clients to make quality referrals. SPONSORED CONTENT