Archinect - News

Toyo Ito’s Pritzker Prize Acceptance Speech

2013-05-30T21:18:00-04:00

Earlier this year in March, it was announced that Japanese architect Toyo Ito would join the ranks of the architecture Gods and be honored with the 2013 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Last night now at a festive ceremony in Boston's John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, he finally received his coveted medal and $100,000 grant from Thomas J. Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation which has sponsored the prize since its founding in 1979.

Following is Ito's full acceptance speech in English:

"Good evening ladies and gentlemen! I am thrilled and honored to be awarded the Pritzker Prize in the presence of so many dear friends and distinguished architects from around the world. It is also a special pleasure to be here, in the John F. Kennedy Library, on the birthday of John F. Kennedy, the 35th President. I do believe this is the best day of my life so far!

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude first to the Pritzker Family: Mrs. Cindy Pritzker, Mr. Thomas J. Pritzker, and Mrs. Margaret Pritzker. I also thank the jury members, Lord Peter Palumbo, Mr. Alejandro Aravena, Mr. Juhani Pallasmaa, Mr. Glenn Murcutt, Mr. Stephen Breyer, Mr. Yung Ho Chang, and Ms. Martha Thorne.

At the same time, being here in Boston, I cannot help but think of the bombing that happened here last month. Please allow me to offer my condolences to the victims and to all of those whose lives were affected by those horrific events.

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Paul Rudolph’s Brutalism, reworked, at UMass Dartmouth

2012-11-26T17:28:00-05:00

Designed in the late 1960s by one of the most inventive architects in American history, Paul Rudolph, the campus is a powerful, muscular pile of raw concrete. It’s an example of an architectural style that’s known, for better or worse, as Brutalism. Now one of the major chunks of UMass Dartmouth is being transformed. That’s the Claire T. Carney Library, which is being renovated and enlarged — redesigned, really, in many ways — by a talented Boston architecture firm that calls itself designLAB.

Boston Architectural College student missing, search continues

2012-10-08T14:24:00-04:00

The volunteers from LostNMissing Inc., a nationwide non-profit organization based in Londonderry, N.H., are scheduled to begin circulating posters about Jonathan Dailey, a second-year student at Boston Architectural College, around Allston early Sunday afternoon.

Police say Dailey is 5 feet 9 inches, 160 pounds, with brown eyes and black hair, and a black stripe tattoo on his left bicep. Anyone who sees him should call District D-14 detectives at 617-343-4256.

Man Builds Boston In Video Game, Internet Finally Discovers It Six Years Later

2012-09-14T14:08:00-04:00

Phil Boucher is a self-described “architecture nerd.” And while part of that means marveling and photographing the beautiful buildings around Boston, it also means recreating the entire city as accurately as possible in the video game Sim City 4.

Boston architecture firms recovering from 2008

2012-08-15T17:00:00-04:00

Architecture firms in the Boston area are continuing their recovery from the sharp declines in 2008 and 2009, according to the 2012 Architectural Survey from accounting firm CBIZ Tofias. In 2011, these firms saw a slight improvement from the slowdown, which for most firms began in 2008. There were slight increases in the direct labor utilization rate (the percentage of time worked on billable projects) and the profit per direct hour compared to 2010.

The Prudential Center: An Architectural Eyesore That Saved Downtown Boston

2012-07-05T16:32:00-04:00

The boxy Prudential Center, built in the 1960s, has never been a darling of architecture critics. But Yale University architectural historian Elihu Rubin says the massive redevelopment project represents a key historical moment when — at the height of white flight and automobile sprawl — a mega-corporation made an unlikely investment in the future of cities.

Gustafson Guthrie Nichol & Crosby Schlessinger Smallridge Receive 2012 Tucker Design Award

2012-05-11T18:24:00-04:00

Seattle landscape architecture firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN), together with Crosby Schlessinger Smallridge (CSS) of Boston, are the recipients of the biennial Tucker Design Award for 2012. GGN and CSS have been recognized for North End Parks, the three-acre park that was part of the “Big Dig” development in Boston, MA.

How Boston City Hall was born

2012-02-10T19:16:00-05:00

Whatever else you might think about it, Boston City Hall is an improbable building. Call it a giant concrete harmonica or a bold architectural achievement, but to walk by this strange, asymmetrical structure in Government Center is to wonder how on earth it landed there.

Fifty years after a groundbreaking competition, two architects look back at the project that polarized the city — and gave it a new lease on life

In Boston, architects design a public face for the profession

2011-11-29T11:54:00-05:00

Howeler + Yoon won the competition to design the center, named BSA Space, which will include gallery, office, multimedia and meeting spaces for members, potential members and the general public. The two story, 17,000 square foot center will give the BSA a very public presence in an area with lots of foot traffic among restaurants, stores, and public transportation in the Fort Point Channel district.