For Immediate Release: September 11, 2006
Media Contacts: Johanna Weber

2007 Scully Prize Rybczynski: News Release

National Building Museum Announces Witold Rybczynski as the Winner of the 2007 Scully Prize

Washington, D.C.—The National Building Museum's eighth Vincent Scully Prize will be presented on January 17, 2007 to Witold Rybczynski. The award recognizes Rybczynski's contributions as a scholar, author, professor, and architect to the fields of architecture and urban planning.

The Vincent Scully Prize and endowment was established by the National Building Museum in 1999 to recognize exemplary practice, scholarship, or criticism in architecture, historic preservation, and urban design.

Best known for his work as an architectural critic and essayist, Witold Rybczynski has been described as "one of the most original, accessible, and stimulating writers on architecture" by Library Journal. He is the author of numerous acclaimed books including Home (1986), which has been translated into ten languages; the J. Anthony Lukas Prize winning A Clearing in the Distance (1999); The Look of Architecture (2000); and the forthcoming Last Harvest, on real estate development. He contributes regularly on architecture and urbanism to The New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and is an architectural critic for the on-line magazine Slate. He is currently the Martin and Margy Meyerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Design.

In recognition of his contributions to architecture and urban planning, President George W. Bush appointed Rybczynski to the Commission of Fine Arts in 2005. The Commission of Fine Arts advises on the design of public buildings, parks, and memorials in Washington, DC. In 1993, he was made an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and in 1991 his research on low-cost housing received the AIA's Progressive Architecture Design award.

The Vincent J. Scully Prize will be presented to Witold Rybczynski at the National Building Museum on January 17, 2007 beginning at 6:30 pm. Distinguished architects Moshe Safdie of Moshe Safdie and Associates and Jacquelin T. Robertson, founding partner of Cooper, Robertson & Partners will provide opening remarks. Following the award ceremony, Mr. Rybczynski will give a presentation on Demand-Side Urbanism that will explore four paradigms of 20th century American urbanism.

$12 members and students; $20 nonmembers. Pre-registration required. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.www.nbm.org or call 202.272.2448.

The 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. For more than four decades his teaching and scholarship have profoundly influenced prominent architects and urban planners. The jury for the Prize is comprised of Chairman David Schwarz; Michael J. Glosserman, chair of the Museum's Board of Trustees; Robert Peck; Samina Quraeshi; and Deborah Berke. Past recipients of the Scully prize include 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, and Phyllis Lambert.

The National Building Museum is America’s leading cultural institution dedicated to exploring and celebrating architecture, design, engineering, construction, and planning. Chartered by Congress in 1980 and open to the public since 1985, the Museum has become a vital forum for exchanging ideas and information about the built environment through its exhibitions, education programs, and publications. The Museum is located at 401 F Street NW, Washington, D.C. Museum hours are Monday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm. Admission is free. Museum Shop. Café. Public inquiries: 202.272.2448 or visit www.nbm.org.