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
| Dec 28, 2010
Project of the Week: Community college for next-gen Homeland Security personnel
The College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, Ill., began work on the Homeland Security Education Center, which will prepare future emergency personnel to tackle terrorist attacks and disasters. The $25 million, 61,100-sf building’s centerpiece will be an immersive interior street lab for urban response simulations.
| Dec 20, 2010
Architect Adrian D. Smith on zero-energy cities, new technologies, and high density.
Adrian D. Smith, FAIA, RIBA, is co-founder (with Gordon Gill) of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, Chicago. Previously, he was a design partner in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (1980-2003) and a consulting design partner from 2004 to 2006. His landmark structures include the Jin Mao Tower (Shanghai), Rowes Wharf (Boston), and Burj Khalifa (Dubai, U.A.E.), the world’s tallest structure. He recently collaborated with Gordon Gill to design the world’s first net-zero-energy skyscraper, Pearl River Tower, now nearing completion in Guangzhou, China. This account is based on his recent remarks at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
| Dec 17, 2010
BIM Tools Enhance Project Value
The Building Team for a renovation project at Georgia Tech uses BIM and 3D design tools to solve a complex millwork problem.
| Dec 17, 2010
Historic Rhode Island hotel reborn with modern amenities
The iconic Ocean House resort in Watch Hill, R.I., had to be torn down in 2005 when systemic deficiencies made restoration unfeasible. Centerbrook Architects and Planners, Centerbrook, Conn., designed a new version of the hotel, working with preservation societies to save or recreate favorite elements of the original building, and incorporating them into the contemporary structure. The new resort has 49 guest rooms and 23 residences, plus banquet halls, a corporate boardroom, a private clubroom, a spa and fitness center, an indoor lap pool, a bar, and the obligatory international croquet court. Dimeo Construction, Providence, R.I., was the construction manager.
| Dec 17, 2010
Gemstone-inspired design earns India’s first LEED Gold for a hotel
The Park Hotel Hyderabad in Hyderabad, India, was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to combine inspirations from the region’s jewelry-making traditions with sustainable elements.
| Dec 17, 2010
Condominium and retail building offers luxury and elegance
The 58-story Austonian in Austin, Texas, is the tallest residential building in the western U.S. Benchmark Development, along with Ziegler Cooper Architects and Balfour Beatty (GC), created the 850,000-sf tower with 178 residences, retail space, a 6,000-sf fitness center, and a 10th-floor outdoor area with a 75-foot saltwater lap pool and spa, private cabanas, outdoor kitchens, and pet exercise and grooming areas.
| Dec 17, 2010
Sam Houston State arts programs expand into new performance center
Theater, music, and dance programs at Sam Houston State University have a new venue in the 101,945-sf, $38.5 million James and Nancy Gaertner Performing Arts Center. WHR Architects, Houston, designed the new center to connect two existing buildings at the Huntsville, Texas, campus.
| Dec 17, 2010
Alaskan village school gets a new home
Ayagina’ar Elitnaurvik, a new K-12 school serving the Lower Kuskikwim School District, is now open in Kongiganak, a remote Alaskan village of less than 400 residents. The 34,000-sf, 12-classroom facility replaces one that was threatened by river erosion.
| Dec 17, 2010
Luxury condos built for privacy
A new luxury condominium tower in Los Angeles, The Carlyle has 24 floors with 78 units. Each of the four units on each floor has a private elevator foyer. The top three floors house six 5,000-sf penthouses that offer residents both indoor and outdoor living space. KMD Architects designed the 310,000-sf structure, and Elad Properties was project developer.
| Dec 17, 2010
Subway entrance designed to exude Hollywood charm
The Hollywood/Vine Metro portal and public plaza in Los Angeles provides an entrance to the Red Line subway and the W Hollywood Hotel. Local architect Rios Clementi Hale Studio designed the portal and plaza to flow with the landmark theaters and plazas that surround it.
