Marion Weiss Michael Manfredi 2020 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medalists in Architecture
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Architects Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi, co-founders of a New York-based architectural design firm named one of North America’s “Emerging Voices” by the Architectural League of New York, are the 2020 recipients of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture.
Their multidisciplinary practice, WEISS/MANFREDI Architecture/Landscape/Urbanism, is at the forefront of redefining the relationships between landscape, architecture, infrastructure and art. Their award-winning projects include the Seattle Art Museum’s Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle, which Time Magazine identified as one of the top 10 projects in the world. Integrating art, architecture and ecology, the park has won numerous other honors, and was the first project in North America to win Harvard University’s Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design.
Most recently, WEISS/MANFREDI was selected through an international competition to lead to re-envision the world-renowned 12-acre La Brea Tar Pits and Museum in Los Angeles.
The medals, typically presented in person at UVA and Monticello, will be given in absentia this year due to ongoing efforts to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus and limitations on events and travel. In recognition of this distinguished honor, the UVA School of Architecture will host a virtual public talk given by Weiss and Manfredi on Monday, April 20 at 5pm (EST).
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Weiss, who earned her undergraduate degree in architecture at UVA and her graduate degree from the Yale School of Architecture, is currently the Graham Chair Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania and has taught design studios at Harvard University, Yale University and Cornell University. She was also an Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor at Yale University. In 2017, she was honored by Architectural Record with the Women in Architecture Design Leader Award. She is also a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a National Academy of Design inductee.
Manfredi is currently a senior design critic at Harvard University. Born in Trieste, Italy, and raised in Rome, Manfredi completed his undergraduate education in the U.S. and received a Master of Architecture degree from Cornell University. He has taught design studios at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Cornell University. In addition to being a founding board member of the Van Alen Institute, he is also a fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a National Academy of Design inductee.
WEISS/MANFREDI is known for placing environmental stewardship and sustainability at the core of their work, and for their design projects that require progressive ecological and infrastructural frameworks. In addition to the Seattle Museum of Art’s Olympic Sculpture Park, these frameworks are evident in their award-winning and public-facing projects such as Hunter’s Point South Waterfront Park on the East River in New York, winner of the 2019 Masterworks Award for “Best Urban Landscape” and one of four projects selected as “Best Architecture of 2018” by The Wall Street Journal. The Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology, a state-of-the-art lab facility at the University of Pennsylvania, earned WEISS/MANFREDI an AIA Institute Honor Award. The firm’s design for the visitor center at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden won the NY Public Design Commission Award for Excellence in Design and an American Society of Landscape Architects Honor Award.
“As designers, Marion Weiss and Michael Manfredi have been critically redefining the relationship between landscape, architecture and urbanism through their work, which not only underscores the significance that Thomas Jefferson attributed to these intertwined realms, but also speaks to the necessity, in our current age, to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries and create newly integrated cultural-ecological paradigms,” School of Architecture Dean Ila Berman said. “Their transformation of coastal urban brownfields in Seattle and New York has breathed new life back into these cities, while generating truly public spaces that support inclusiveness and social equity. Innovative, thoughtful and carefully crafted, their works are both powerful and beautiful – urban social condensers and light-filled landscapes that express the profound cultural significance and transformative potential of architecture.”
Other built works include the Tata Innovation Center at Cornell Tech in New York City; the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, New York; and the Women’s Memorial and Education Center at Arlington National Cemetery, winner of a Federal Design Architectural Award. WEISS/MANFREDI’s current projects include Yale University’s Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking, The Tampa Museum of Art expansion, and the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi, India, which breaks ground in spring 2020.
WEISS/MANFREDI won the 2018 Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Institution’s National Design Award, the New York AIA Gold Medal and the Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. They have been featured in exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Building Museum, the Essen Design Centre in Germany, the Louvre Museum and the Venice Biennale. Princeton Architectural Press has published three monographs on their work, including Public Natures: Evolutionary Infrastructures.
On the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, April 13 (known locally as Founder’s Day), the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello join together to present the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals to recognize achievements of those who embrace endeavors in which Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and third U.S. president, excelled and held in high regard. These medals are the highest external honors bestowed by the University of Virginia, which grants no honorary degrees.
Press Release
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
MEDIA CONTACT:
University of Virginia School of Architecture, Sneha Patel, snehapatel@virginia.edu
