For Immediate Release: August 22, 2008
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2008 Scully Prize Stern: News Release
National Building Museum Names Robert A. M. Stern as the Tenth Laureate of the Vincent Scully Prize
Washington, D.C.— The National Building Museum will present its Tenth Vincent Scully Prize to Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture, celebrated author, and founder and senior partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects. Stern was named Scully Prize laureate "for his years of teaching at Columbia and Yale Universities, his leadership as the dean of the Yale School of Architecture, and his seminal publications reflecting on the history of architecture in New York. As an educator and author, he helped create the revival of the shingle style and successfully promoted traditional town planning," according to the Vincent Scully Prize Jury Chairman David Schwarz. A series of events in November are planned to honor Stern and celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Prize.
The Vincent Scully Prize and endowment were established by the National Building Museum in 1999 to recognize exemplary practice, scholarship, or criticism in architecture, historic preservation, and urban design. The Prize has since come to be known as one of the most important awards in the field, recognizing the importance of ideas and scholarship that lead to great built places, while other awards typically focus on a single piece of architecture or a collection of architectural objects. The award value has reached approximately $45,000.
Public and private events to commemorate the Prize's tenth anniversary and Stern's selection will be held at the National Building Museum and around Washington, D.C. On Wednesday, November 12, 2008, leaders in architecture, urban planning, education, the arts, and private industry will pay tribute to Vincent Scully and Stern's legacies and achievements during a black-tie gala and ceremony. The following day, Thursday, November 13, 2008, Scully Prize patrons will be given private, behind-the-scenes tours of some of Washington's most important works of architecture. The Museum will also hold a private reception with Scully, Stern, and select guests in advance of a 6:30 pm public lecture by Stern in the Museum's Great Hall. The public lecture, a tradition of Scully Prize laureates, will be an original work authored and presented by Stern exclusively for the occasion.
Stern follows nine other internationally acclaimed authors, scholars, educators, and practitioners in the field of architecture and urbanism. Past recipients are Vincent J. Scully, Jane Jacobs, Andrés Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, His Highness The Aga Khan, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Phyllis Lambert, Witold Rybczynski, and Richard Moe. At the time Stern was selected, the Tenth Vincent Scully Prize Jury was composed of Chairman David Schwarz; Carolyn Brody, immediate past chair of the Museum's Board of Trustees; Robert Peck; Samina Quraeshi; and Deborah Berke.
About Robert A.M. Stern, Tenth Laureate of the Vincent Scully Prize
Robert A.M. Stern is a practicing architect, teacher, and writer. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and received the AIA New York Chapter's Medal of Honor in 1984 and the Chapter's President's Award in 2001. He received the Athena Award from the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Board of Directors' Honor from the Institute of Classical Architecture and Classical America in 2007.
Stern is Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, a position he has held since 1998. Prior to that he was Professor of Architecture and Director of the Historic Preservation Program at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, where he also served as the first director of the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture from 1984 to 1988. He has lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on both historical and contemporary topics in architecture. Stern is co-author of an acclaimed five-volume series documenting the development of New York City's architecture and urbanism from the Civil War to the millennium. In 1986 he hosted "Pride of Place: Building the American Dream," an eight-part, eight-hour documentary television series.
As founder and Senior Partner of Robert A.M. Stern Architects, he personally directs the design of each of his firm's diverse projects, including the recently completed Comcast Center, a 57-story office building in Center City Philadelphia, and Fifteen Central Park West, a residential building in New York City. He led the design team for two of the most important and influential planning projects of our time: the new town of Celebration, Florida, and the revitalization of the theater block of New York's 42nd Street, which won a 1999 Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects. His current commissions include the Museum for African Art in New York; the American Revolution Center at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; and the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Dallas, Texas. Stern has served as a member of the National Building Museum's Board of Trustees since 1999.
About Vincent J. Scully and the Scully Prize
The Vincent Scully Prize was instituted in honor of Vincent J. Scully, the Sterling Professor Emeritus of the history of art at Yale University and a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Miami and one of the country's leading architectural historians and critics. For more than four decades his teaching and scholarship have profoundly influenced prominent architects and urban planners.
A scholar whose work covers both ancient and modern architecture, Scully is a leading commentator on the changing design of urban areas and its affect on the populace. As a popular teacher, Scully has taught thousands of undergraduates about architectural history. His courses are credited for introducing some of Yale's most famous alumni to architecture and art history. He was twice selected by Time magazine for their survey of "Ten Outstanding American College Teachers." Scully retired in 1991 but still teaches one of his lecture courses at Yale University every fall and, as Distinguished Visiting Professor, at the University of Miami in the spring. Scully was also a Mellon Visiting Professor of History at the California Institute of Technology and a Louis I. Kahn Professor at the American Academy in Rome. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Scully's numerous awards include the National Medal of Arts, the nation's highest honor for artists and arts patrons.
The National Building Museum honored Scully with the first Vincent Scully Prize in 1999. The prize grew rapidly in international prominence with the selection of laureates known for their advocacy of thoughtful urban spaces and historic preservation, practice of thoughtful planning and design, commentary on design in contemporary life, and promotion of traditional arts in architecture. Of the Scully Prize, Jacquelin T. Robertson of Cooper, Robertson & Partners commented, "The Scully Prize is thus, in the larger order of things, infinitely more important than…other prominent design awards precisely [because] it is not primarily about our individual work, but how we and our work makes us feel more at home in our communal settings, our built culture, the house as the city, and vice versa."
Event Information
Tenth Vincent Scully Prize Gala
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Table sponsorship is available from $5,000 to $100,000. Individual tickets are available from $500 to $2,500. Proceeds from the gala will support the Vincent Scully Prize. For more information, visit the gala webpage or contact Tasha Passarelle at 202.272.2448, ext. 3112.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Private tours and the pre-lecture reception are by invitation only. Tickets for the public lecture are $12 for Museum members and students, and $20 for non-members. Pre-registration required. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.nbm.org or call 202.272.2448.
The National Building Museum is America’s leading cultural institution dedicated to advancing the quality of the built environment by educating people about its impact on their lives. Through its exhibitions, educational programs, online content, and publications, the Museum has become a vital forum for the exchange of ideas and information about the world we build for ourselves. Public inquiries: 202.272.2448 or visit www.nbm.org. Connect with us on Twitter: @BuildingMuseum and Facebook.
For press inquiries related to the Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP, please contact Peter Dixon at p.dixon@ramsa.com or 212.967.5100.
