wow... that's really a surprize... Mayne sure deserves it but its a total unknwon outside the architectural professional or academical worlds... even in Europe, Morphosis is not that well-known among architecture followers... I thought Calatrava, Grimshaw, Correa, Pelli or someone else would get it this year..

congrats mr. Mayne!

i am glad to see he is got the comission ( alaska capitol w/ igloo dome). it is just a matter of time he will get the pritzker.
- abracadabra, Mar 01, 05 | 7:40 pm
i also won +,- $ 200 at the tracks last week.
you've got to know the sweat on the horse.

Thom IS the man. The Pritzker is well deserved. Congrats to him!

just remembered that old article from 2003 in MM about "Mayne's Moment"...

www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0303/may/index.html



and that one about the Caltrans

and, back in time, Jencks' 1997 Dead Tech or LA Style

Good for him, but I wonder - is the Pritzker actually good for architecture? It raises the visibility of big A work, but apart from Murcutt (maybe throw Ando, Siza and Fehn in there too), the prize tends to champion the big, the connected, and for most of the world, the irrelevant cultural and corporate work that few individuals ever interact with. Strikes me that the Pritzker is like the Oscars - a lot of insiders patting themselves on the back.

...its more like the Westminister Kennel Club's dog and pony show.

Sure Mayne has done nice work, but i wish that the Pritzker was more about the body of work over a span than about the timing of a good year and press. Mayne has the body of work, but it seems like the jury really responded to his press filled year. Similar to Zaha last year.

Jorn Utzon has been the best choice in the past few years.

but Janosh, isn't that what starchitecture is all about???

Man, you said it.

I would love to interact with some Murcutt private houses, but I'm afraid it could be easy to interact with some Mayne's public works instead...

I adore Murcutt and his working methods and his one-man-show idiosyncrasy, but I took his Pritzker nomination as a recognition to a mass of anonymous architects that have a similar attitude towards their work: small projects, very well-thought, not necessarily spectacular, connected with their cultural and geographical context, etc. So why Murcutt and not a relatively unknown architect from somewhere else? How many people knew about Murcutt before the Pritzker? There are architects in Barcelona -to name my city of reference- that are as good as him and have a strong and coherent trajectory like his.
Utzon left the Opera, but how many people can name more than two Murcutt projects?

So this could be another strategy for the Pritzkers, forget the starchitects and discover unknown architects for the international architecture community and the general public..

i think bob dylan said it best about the pritzker in his tune love minus zero/no limit-

there's no success like failure
and failure is no success at all

ah outside of the architecture world there aint nobody knows what the pritzker is.

does the pritzker prize even matter at all? i've heard its just a big political thing.

but then again, we live in a political world

Murcutt is the South Pacific equivalent of "Calatrava, Grimshaw, Correa, Pelli" He does very nice houses for wealthy people. Don't get me wrong, I love his work. Just don't be fooled into thinking that just because he doesn't design massive projects in Europe, that he is really any different to these other 'starchitects'. It's all about context baby! Eww now I feel dirty.

P/A AWARDS is where it's really at....really.

jeez are you people cynical -

thom mayne has the body of work required, period. to be fair, so do a lot of other people (many mentioned above). but the pritzker has really evolved away from being a 'lifetime achievement' award (utzon really bein the exception) and is designed to heighten the awareness of an architect who is mid-late career. thom is 61. that's starting to get on up there in years. why not award it to him now and hope that the increased attention opens other doors and opportunities for him?

also, this prize is about making something of a dent in the public's conciousness. just scanning through my online newspapers this morning, the mention of him winning was on the top board of yahoo, the ny times, salon, and even the atlanta journal. it'll disappear in a day, but how many other stories do you see about architects in it's place?

finally - of course his selection is political. what award like that isn't???? do you think sambo mockbee's gold medal from the aia wasn't politically driven? we will always have 'starchitects' and the media structures that create and sustain them. always. and, asl someone mentioned above, murcutt wasn't exactly an unknown in the architecture world. do a basic avery search and see how many articles and books had been published on those houses prior to his winning the award. it ain't shabby for a 'one man show'.

i'm not the biggest fan of morphosis's work, but i'm happy for the guy. he earned it.

Well deserved, congrats. I cannot think of anyone more deserving. His contributions to the profession and academia are superb and his contributions to avant garde architecture is unparalled. Through all the techno hoopla (think Lynn, Rashid, and the dozen of other Maya maniacs) he stayed true to his beliefs and interests.

The fact that he won this prize doing great PUBLIC projects is what makes this a huge deal. The majority of 'great' architecture works have the benefit of having a client with deep pockets, but the fact that Thom Mayne has created a portfolio of great stuff under time and budget restraints is what I think makes this pretty cool..

oh c'mon.. Murcutt WAS an unknown... Famous buildings make famous architects, how many "famous buildings" do you know designed by Glenn?

so what if there were books and articles published about Murcutt.. most of the people (I mean, not archinecters, arch students, architects or architecture enthusiasts) never heard about Murcutt -outside the Australian orbit- before the Pritzker, and he hasn't become a starchitect as in a Calatravesque way because he hasn't any major public work... I mean, Manuel Solà-Morales.. do you know him? there are tons of things written about him (and by him) .. and is he an european startchitect (not to mention international)? .. no way, he's one of the best urban planners of Barcelona and has worked extensively abroad -specially in Europe- and I bet 99% of catalan and barcelonian citizens never heard about him (though they daily walk through avenues, squares and urban spaces designed by him)... Yet most of the people have heard about Calatrava or Foster or Nouvel.. and why? in Barcelona because of the bridges, because of Collserola Telecom Tower and because the Agbar Tower...

Murcutt's working methodology won't never "convert" him into a starchitect... and I'm no one to decide if this is good or bad...

medit, a lot of ppl, not archinecters, arch students, architects or architecture enthusiasts, don't know frank gehry either. as antipod said, regionalism is at play here too. you yourself have admit to that with ppl in europe not knowing who mayne is. and yes politics, 5 out of the 8 jurors are from the states. i agree with curtclay. i think his public work is what gave him the edge this year. i'm amazed that the government looks to him again and again.

more power to him!!! a fellow alumnus . he is getting his ideas built for the most part . isnt that what everybody would want . peace

ahem..


The most amazing thing to me about Mayne.



HE SURVIVED POSTMODERNISM.



Thank you.



d - b

He should have won while partnered with Rotondi. Thom's work seems too intuitive now (in fact I know it is from well placed sources). His late 80's early 90's work had a rigor in both representational and construction techniques that seems to be lacking now. Perhaps I am just nostalgic for his rapidiograph ink (those are pens for all you noobies) line drawings.

Here's a question for the "knowledge pool" Is there anywhere we can look at these infamous rapidograph requiems that mayne made? JG, where have you seen them? Just in books? Or are there any valid internet sources?

He looks like a little kid!

hell yeah.....he the man!

[img]http://web.pdx.edu/~fzal/Arch281-2003/Reference-Palimpsest/LAgesture-Morphosis-ArtPark1989b.jpg[img]

MoMA has a few in thier collection as well. His monograph from 89-93 (green cover) contains many of these drawings.

"Thom's work seems too intuitive now (in fact I know it is from well placed sources). "


Intiution with a decisive process creates the best architecture. I cannot think of any architect that I admire that does not design out of 90% intuition. I also know that most designers don't have a strong intuition and rely on a strategic process. This can work, as it occasionally does with people like Koolhaas, but it usually is unattractive (like Koolhaas).

Does anyone else feel like the Prtizker is running out of candidates? Shouldn't this be an award for an architect will a prolific career of built work? Does Mayne fit that description? Is that a bad description?

DITTO TRACE!!! IF KOOLHAAS WON A PRITZKER THOM SHOULD HAVE WON YRS EARLIER.

SPEAEKING OF FUTURE CANDIDATES, WHAT IS OL'E ROTUNDI UP TO THESE DAYS?

Isn't anyone bothered by the fact that the Pritzker committee keeps selecting brand names ? I can understand the fact that the Pritzker committe is probably trying to build prestige and credibility, but at least they could show a little daring and vision by looking for candidates who haven't received due attention in the popular media, and who don't have a proper client base. The selection committee for the Nobel Peace and the literature prize typically do this, and it's a worthwhile strategy.

It's not that I don't like or respect Mayne or Hadid or Koolhaas -- on the contrary, they're some of the best we've got. It's just that there are a lot of brilliant people out there doing amazing things, and most of them lack the resources to gain proper exposure.

Caleb-

Rotondi's got some intriguing work, most of it in the research/exploratory vein. None of it likely to generate much star-power, maybe, and it seems like that suits him fine. Looks like he's following his personal interests more than he is following money or notoriety.

Each of the projects by ROTO I've seen is so completely different from the last that I would expect there is a huge learning curve with each one. From getting into the culture of the client to figuring out how to make what's proposed. They're not repeating themselves.

He's also been spending some time here at University of Kentucky over the past few years, teaming with young professors in some nicely obtuse studio pursuits - so far with beautiful results. (Full disclosure: I was in one of these studios.)

yeah, that's pretty sweet. But does it look, "inuitive?"

GASP

The pritzker has always been out of candidates. Will someone please go online and get a picture of work by ROCHE. Or whatever the fuck his name is. I can't do it. It's too ugly.

Plus, don't you think someone asked the same question when Venturi won the Pritzker?

ANNNNNND.


Is the pritzker going to be televised?

heh, they could do a reality based tv show centered around all of the canidates and force them to live under one roof together for couple of months. the house should be some gawd awful dump that is sure to offend all of them.

running out of candidates? not in the slightest...did anyone read the pritzker posts before the mayne announcement?, everyone seemed to have candidates then.

ps-Glen Murcutt kinda sucks

IMO, Rotondi is fading into the "where are they now" category. Comparing their work and accomplishments since their separation lends credence to the Mayne's award.