American Thom Mayne Wins Pritzker
"I'm a fucking dreamer, and I was always told I couldn't do it. But here it is. It's not perfect, but it's as good as I could do, and it's here. And you could do it. Don't let anybody tell you, 'You can't do it.' That's their problem." - Thom Mayne, Metropolis, August 2004
Diamond Ranch High School
Thom Mayne has been named the Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate for 2005, only the eight American to ever be selected for the prestigious prize. The award seals Mayne's transformation from an aging but influential "paper" architect with almost no large public projects to an enormously successful 61 year-old head of a thriving firm with a slew of grand scale public buildings slated for construction.
Often called the "bad boy" of So Cal architecture, Mayne had a reputation for winning a host of awards for his designs, but never having any of them built. That all changed for him when his design for the Diamond Ranch High School in Pamona was selected as the winner in a 1997 competition - his first, real public project and a building that remains Mayne's favorite of his works. Since then, Mayne has been chosen to build a number of giant scale public projects - from a Federal Office Building in San Francisco to the Olympic Village for the NYC 2012 Olympics.
Check out his firm Mophosis for more examples of his work, and you can get even more information about the Pritzker Prize winner here.
posted by Paul at
2:41 PM
1 comment(s):
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Those kids are going to hate it. They're going to also beat the shit out of it and I bet you that since it is exquisite architecture, the flat roofs will leak and the concrete will crumble and there will be rot underneath the cool alloy exoskeleton. Schools should never hire high-concept architects! That said, I am glad they did and I am pleased that he received an award for it.
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Chris Abraham, at
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