Andrew Freear and Rural Studio 2023 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medalist in Architecture

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Teacher, designer, builder and advocate Andrew Freear, Wiatt Professor and director of Auburn University Rural Studio has been named the 2023 recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture.

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals — sponsored jointly by the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the nonprofit organization that owns and operates Monticello — are awarded each year to recognize the achievements of those who embrace endeavors in which Jefferson — author of the Declaration of Independence, third U.S. president and founder of the University of Virginia — excelled and held in high regard. The architecture medal and its counterparts in law, citizen leadership, and global innovation are UVA’s highest external honors.

Freear and Rural Studio join a distinguished list of past recipients of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture, including Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, I.M. Pei, Frank Gehry, Toyo Ito, Zaha Hadid, Sir David Adjaye, and Kenneth Frampton.

“It is an honor to recognize Andrew Freear and Rural Studio’s hands-on architectural pedagogy that has significantly improved the living conditions for residents in rural Hale County, Alabama, and continues to support long-term wellbeing and regional sustainability in the area,” UVA School of Architecture Dean Malo A. Hutson said.  “We are inspired by Rural Studio’s commitment to cultivating students who are both local architects and citizens of the world—and its ability to help aspiring young architects address the ethical responsibility for the social, political, and environmental consequences of what they design and build.”

Freear will give a public talk to mark the occasion on April 13 at 4:00 p.m. in Old Cabell Hall’s auditorium. This is not a ticketed event, and it is free and open to the public.

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For more than two decades, Andrew Freear has lived in rural Newbern, Alabama, a town with a population of 187, where he runs Rural Studio, a hands-on, place-based program that questions the conventional education and role of architects.  His students have designed and built more than 220 community buildings, homes, and parks in their under-resourced community, rooted in Hale County.  He is a teacher, designer, builder, advocate, and liaison between local authorities, community partners, and students.

Rural Studio was founded 30 years ago by Samuel Mockbee (1944-2001) and D.K. Ruth (1944-2009) and is regarded as one of the oldest, most influential, and well-respected design-build programs in the world.  It is part of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at Auburn University, and maintains a core mission to educate architecture students who live on site and design and build structures for residents and communities in the under-resourced persistently impoverished rural region known as the Black Belt.

More than 1,200 students have been educated through Rural Studio’s context-based service-learning curriculum, where students live and work alongside neighbors, finding solutions together.  In particular, the program develops research and projects that support long-term wellbeing and sustainable rural living, focused on home access and affordability, effective and efficient use of timber, small-scale farming, and access to resources such as clean water. 

"It’s quite extraordinary that a modest undergraduate program in West Alabama can be mentioned alongside giants in our field such as Jane Jacobs, Glenn Murcutt, Billie Tsien, Tod Williams, and Frances Kéré,” said this year’s medalist Freear. We are deeply humbled to have been selected for this distinction not just for the honor, but for the light that it shines on rural America and society’s role in ensuring equitable, dignified communities."

A native of Yorkshire, England and educated at the Polytechnic of Central London and the Architectural Association in London, Freear joined Rural Studio in 2000, and has provided leadership for the program for over twenty years.  Freear’s work has been published extensively, and he regularly lectures around the world.  He has been involved in the writing of three books about Rural Studio and was the co-author of the third, entitled Rural Studio at Twenty: Designing and Building in Hale County Alabama.  He has designed and built exhibits at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, the Whitney Biennial, and the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, as well as the Milan Triennale and the Venice Biennale.

His honors include the Ruth and Ralph Erskine Nordic Foundation Award, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, and the Architecture Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  Freear was a 2018 Loeb Fellow at Harvard University and in 2020 received the President’s Medal from the Architectural League of New York, the League’s highest honor.  In 2021, he was inducted as a National Academician into the National Academy of Design and in 2022, Rural Studio received the National Design Award in Architecture / Interior Design from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture is one of three medals to be presented. This year’s Medal in Law goes to Indian public-interest litigators, Arundhati Katju and Menaka Guruswamy. The Medal in Citizen Leadership will be awarded to Jason Rezaian, an Iranian-American journalist who served as Tehran bureau chief for The Washington Post. This year’s medal winners will be celebrated at an April 13 luncheon in the Dome Room of UVA’s Rotunda, marking the 280th anniversary of Jefferson’s birth in 1743.

THOMAS JEFFERSON FOUNDATION MEDALISTS IN ARCHITECTURE

1966 MIES VAN DER ROHE  
1967 ALVAR AALTO
1968 MARCEL BREUER
1969 JOHN ELY BURCHARD
1970 KENZO TANGE
1971 JOSE LUIS SERT
1972 LEWIS MUMFORD
1973 JEAN LABATUT
1974 FREI OTTO
1975 SIR NIKOLAUS PEVSNER
1976 I.M. PEI
1977 ADA LOUISE HUXTABLE
1978 PHILIP JOHNSON
1979 LAWRENCE HALPRIN
1980 HUGH A. STUBBINS
1981 EDWARD LARRABEE BARNES
1982 VINCENT SCULLY
1983 ROBERT VENTURI
1984 H.H. THE AGA KHAN
1985 LEON KRIER
1986 JAMES STIRLING
1987 ROMALDO GIURGOLA
1988 DAN KILEY
1989 PAUL MELLON
1990 FUMIHIKO MAKI
1991 JOHN V. LINDSAY
1992 ALDO ROSSI
1993 ANDRES M. DUANY & ELIZABETH PLATER-ZYBERK
1994 FRANK O. GEHRY
1995 IAN L. MCHARG
1996 JANE JACOBS
1997 JAIME LERNER
1998 JAQUELIN T. ROBERTSON
1999 LORD RICHARD ROGERS
2000 DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN
2001 GLENN MURCUTT
2002 JAMES TURRELL
2003 TOD WILLIAMS & BILLIE TSIEN
2004 PETER WALKER
2005 SHIGERU BAN
2006 PETER ZUMTHOR
2007 ZAHA HADID
2008 GRO HARLEM BRUNDTLAND
2009 ROBERT IRWIN
2010 EDWARD O. WILSON
2011 MAYA LIN
2012 RAFAEL MONEO
2013 LAURIE OLIN
2014 TOYO ITO
2015 HERMAN HERTZBERGER
2016 CECIL BALMOND
2017 YVONNE FARRELL & SHELLEY MCNAMARA
2018 SIR DAVID ADJAYE
2019 KAZUYO SEJIMA & RYUE NISHIZAWA
2020 MARION WEISS & MICHAEL MANFREDI
2021 DIÉBÉDO FRANCIS KÉRÉ
2022 KENNETH FRAMPTON
2023 ANDREW FREEAR & RURAL STUDIO

MEDIA CONTACT:

University of Virginia School of Architecture, Sneha Patel, snehapatel@virginia.edu