The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum announced August 1 that architect I.M. Pei, FAIA, of Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners, and designers Lella and Massimo Vignelli, Vignelli Associates, will receive the 2003 National Design Awards for Lifetime Achievement and will be honored at an October 22 benefit gala. AIA Gold Medalist Richard Meier, FAIA, will chair the event in New York City.

Pei and the Vignellis will be honored with lifetime achievement awards for their outstanding service to the design profession. Needing no introduction to AIA members, Pei won a Pritzker Prize in 1983 and is renowned for such projects as the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the John F. Kennedy Library, Boston; and the Grand Louvre, Paris, among many others. Also needing no introduction, Vignelli Associates is a New York City firm whose work includes graphic identity programs, publications and print materials, household and office furnishings, housewares, and interior and exhibition design. The firm has been a longtime graphic consultant to Architectural Record, redesigning the magazine in 1982 and again in 1991.

At the same event, Target and the U.S. General Services Administration Design Excellence Program will be honored with awards for corporate achievement:

• Target will be honored for its efforts, which have “democratized design and made a major impact on the education of the American pubic about its daily benefits. The company commissions product lines by prominent designers like Michael Graves, FAIA, to expand product offerings at modest prices.”
• The U.S. General Services Administration Design Excellence Program will be awarded a special commendation in the corporate achievement category, for fulfilling the “Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture” set forth by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, which called for the agency to become a steward of many of the nation’s most valued architectural treasures as the builder for the federal government. Through the Design Excellence Program, GSA has continued this tradition, commissioning some of America’s leading architects to design public buildings of lasting quality.

The museum also announced the finalists in its other categories—architecture, communications, environment, product, and fashion—for which the winners will be announced and honored at the October 22 gala. The winners and finalists were among more than 300 nominations put forward by a committee of more than 700 leading designers, educators, journalists, cultural figures, and corporate leaders. The jury is withholding the winners’ names until the October gala.

Architecture Design Finalists

ARO (Architecture Research Office). ARO’s principals, Stephen Cassell and Adam Yarinsky, AIA, use a research-based methodology that rose from their insistence on developing, testing, and implementing architecture based on all the complexities of its underlying physical, economic, and social ideas. ARO has demonstrated that contextual architecture need not mean “blending in” or “historic.” It can be innovative and sensual in its own right. Their rigorous practice is characterized by both its elegance and its mission to help other architects through new discoveries in physical and tactile design methods. Recent ARO commissions include Times Square’s U.S. Armed Forces Recruiting Station, the Qiora Store and Spa on Madison Avenue in New York City, and a War Remembrance Memorial at Columbia University. In 2003, ARO’s first monograph, ARO, Architecture Research Office, was released (published in 2003 in the Graham Foundation/Princeton Architectural Press series).

Frederic Schwartz, AIA. Native New Yorker Frederic Schwartz’s career has been dedicated to some of America’s most visible public projects. As former director of the New York office of Venturi and Scott Brown, Schwartz headed the nation’s largest urban design project: the 100-acre Westway State Park and Highway. Recently completed works include the Santa Fe Railyard Park and Plaza and the Southwest Regional Capitol of France in Toulouse. As a downtown Manhattan resident—after witnessing the tragedies of September 11 firsthand—Schwartz began “drawing and drawing again . . . in a healing process, re-envisioning the city to help mend its wounds.” He co-founded the THINK team, one of the finalists for the redevelopment of the World Trade Center.

Billie Tsien, AIA, and Tod Williams, FAIA. Tsien and Williams have worked together since 1977 and have deliberately kept their firm small, focusing on a few projects at a time and choosing to work slowly in a world characterized by speed. Their architecture designs are based on a profound sense of optimism and the conviction “that it is possible to make places on Earth that can give a sense of grace to life.” True craftspeople, Tsien and Williams design with exquisite attention to detail in surprising ways, creating welcoming environments for their residential, institutional, and cultural clients. Recent works include New York City's American Folk Art Museum, Scripps Institute for Childhood and Neglected Diseases, and Cranbrook School’s Natatorium, and the Phoenix Art Museum.

Environmental Design Finalists

Laurie Olin, Hon. AIA. Olin is widely admired for his subtle understanding of relationships among people, their institutions and communities, and the natural world as well as his ability to achieve a harmonious balance of all these considerations. Many distinguished architects seek him as a collaborator, and he has won commissions for some of the country’s most popular public spaces and parks, including Wagner Park and major sections of Battery Park City, Los Angeles's J. Paul Getty Center, Washington Monument Grounds, Bryant Park restoration and reconstruction, and several major university campuses, including the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, MIT, and the University of Virginia.

Rocky Mountain Institute. The 21-year practice of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) incorporates green design processes that promote the efficient and restorative use of resources and new business models. They have pioneered the design or redesign of hundreds of environmentally sound buildings and communities, refugee camps, factories, and energy and water systems. Their research in sustainable design for the building trade is extensive and is one of the primary resources for design professionals, community leaders, and real-estate developers. Economically astute, RMI has often demonstrated how energy and resource savings give companies a competitive advantage through such publications as Greening the Building and the Bottom Line.

Michael Van Valkenburgh, AIA. A professor and mentor in Harvard’s Graduate School of Design for more than 20 years, Van Valkenburgh has achieved a prolific and diverse practice, designing and building more than 300 gardens; parks; and corporate, civic, and institutional landscapes nationwide and abroad. Although much of his early work was created for residential clients, public commissions have been his focus for the past 10 years. Recent and current commissions include Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Riverfront Park; a master plan for Brooklyn Bridge Park and Teardrop Park in Battery Park City, both in New York City; and the redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House.

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