Tiantian Xu named winner of the 2023 Marcus Prize by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning

Beijing-based architect Tiantian Xu has been named the winner of this year's Marcus Prize by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning (SARUP).

The $100,000 prize is one of the highest monetary awards in architecture and recognizes established architects who show future promise in the field. Xu is the Prize’s tenth overall winner. She will travel to Milwaukee in the spring of 2024 to teach a studio on a yet-to-be-named topic affecting daily life in the city.

Born in Fujian Province, Xu studied at Tsinghua University before entering Harvard GSD and then practicing briefly with OMA in Rotterdam. As the founding principal of DnA _Design and Architecture, Xu has been instrumental in the country’s ambitious program of rural development using the holistic approach she refers to as “architectural acupuncture.” Xu credits her childhood in the 80s and 90s as a motivation to work on behalf of those “left-behind” communities that were negatively impacted by the era of rapid urbanization.

She is a recipient of the Architectural League of New York’s Young Architects Award and Design Vanguard Award in 2008 and 2009. Xu’s work has also been honored with the 2019 Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture and, recently, the 2023 Berlin Art Prize’s Architecture category. She was also appointed an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 2020. 

Xu joins Ensamble Studio's Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa (2021 winners), Tatiana Bilbao (2019 winner), and Jeanne Gang (2017 winner), among others. Juror Kai-Uwe Bergmann said finally: “I’m so thrilled for Xu and UWM students and faculty for this great exchange of cultures and experience across oceans and great plains. I’m hoping that the students and Xu will create visions that will serve Milwaukee well as it looks towards its future.”