Widely hailed in the architects-under-50 bracket, REX founding principal and president Joshua Prince-Ramus will receive the sixth Marcus Prize, as announced today by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP). The prize is awarded to architects who have demonstrated at least 10 years of exceptional practice and show a "strong trajectory to greatness", as SARUP describes.
In addition to the $100,000 cash prize, Prince-Ramus will make scheduled visits to SARUP and participate in public lectures and and workshops during the spring 2016 semester. He'll also be leading a graduate design studio at the school alongside Adjunct Associate Professor, Matt Jarosz. There isn't much detail about the studio at the moment, but it will deal with specific architectural challenges with the intent to bring about long-term benefits to Milwaukee’s urban fabric.
From top to bottom: Necklace Residence; Seattle Central Library; AT&T Performing Arts Center Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre
Prince-Ramus was selected from a competitive international pool of nominees by the 2015 Marcus Prize jury: Blair Kamin, the Chicago Tribune architecture critic; Tom Fisher, former Dean and Director of the Metropolitan Design Center at the University of Minnesota; Philip Hamp, Principal of Vinci/Hamp Architects; and Robert Greenstreet, Dean of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee SARUP.
In a press statement from SARUP, the jury noted "that REX’s 'exuberant yet carefully-considered designs possess a broader cultural significance' and praised the 'typological invention' of their projects. 'They symbolize and help drive the millennial generation’s rediscovery of the city,' Blair Kamin stated. 'We eagerly anticipate Joshua’s interaction with, and influence on, the design and real estate communities of Milwaukee and the upper Midwest.'"
9 Comments
Typical. White male wins architecture prize. What's new.
Amazing news!!!
Previous Marcus Prize winners have been Winy Maas (The Netherlands), Frank Barkow (Germany), Alejandro Aravena (Chile), Diebedo Francis Kere (Burkina Faso/Germany) and Sou Fujimoto (Japan).
The first awards went to MVRDV and Barkow Leibinger, as firms. Winy Maas and Frank Barkow represented the firms at the School.
Transcript, SARUP boosting committee:
Committee member #1: Think we all agree that the easiest way is to draw big names to the school.
Committee member #2: Well, to do that, we're going to need to throw a bunch of money at it.
Committee member #3: And validate them like a groupie without a gag reflex.
Committee chair: Great! Think we're done here.
That'll buy a lot of black t shirts.
Congratulations to JPR. I agree that his work shows a "strong trajectory to greatness", but I also fear getting an accolade like that can become a like a grand piano dangling over someone's head.
REXs work is amazing--can't wait for the Five Manhattan West renovation---shows the Brutalism is just a brand-and buildings can be reimagined. Just like he reimagined the library and the theater.
@Derek Kaplan: As a student participant in the first round of the Marcus Prize, the real benefit was to counter what was at the time, a rather insular (many of the original faculty had reached tenure but not retirement so there wasa bit of stagnation) and provincial program (a critic from farther away than Chicago was unheard of). At the time, it felt like the school was very hesitant to use the prize as promotion because a) they weren't sure how it would turn out b) it was very far from what the school was used to producing and c) there was very little promotion in general, they mostly got by on being the only accredited program in the state. In fact, I wondered whether the program really would continue past the first iteration.
However, even if we felt that the school wasn't very eager in promoting our work, we were always very well supported and I'm glad to see it continue, especially as other efforts to bring in new voices to the school (like the Teaching Fellowship) have been endangered by the massive projected budget cuts to the UW system.
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