New York City was amply represented during last night's National Design Awards at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.
New York Takes Center Stage at Design Awards
Richard Rogers Wins Pritzker
He made his name in London, Paris, Madrid, and Tokyo, and now he's making his mark on New York, too, with four major projects in development. Richard Rogers, one of Britain's handful of architect-knights, has just been awarded the 2007 Pritzker Prize, architecture's top honor.
Pritzker Prize Goes to Thom Mayne
Los Angeles architect Thom Mayne has been awarded the Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in the field of architecture. Gothamist guesses that the awesome design for the Caltrans District 7 building in downtown L.A. tipped it in his favor this year (here's a profile of the building, see some work in progress photos here), but he's had a very storied career. As for Mayne's NYC projects, with his firm Morphosis, Mayne has designed the new building at Cooper Union (above) and submitted a proposal for an Olympic Village for NYC's 2012 Olympic bid (below. Here's the NY Times story about his win, the first by an American in 14 years (Robert Venturi in 1991).
Highline Design Finalists Selected
The Friends of the Highline have selected four design teams to compete for the coveted project of turning the Highline, the elevated train tracks on the West Side, into a public park. Among the finalists involved are Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid's firm, artist Olafur Eliasson of Weather Project fame at the Tate Modern, and a number of other top architectural firms. Curbed has details on the teams, per the Friends of the Highline press release. The designs submitted by the four teams will be on display at the Center for Architecture, beginning July 15 (which is also the night of an opening panel discussion). Gothamist is very excited by this, but we're still fond of the abandoned nature of the Highline, rusting train trestle and wildflowers growing haphazardly. But better for the Highline to be a park rather than be demolished.
U.N. Addition to Be Designed By Fumihiko Maki
Maki's buildings, like the Fujisawa Municipal Gym in Fujisawa, Japan (picture, right), are considered to be in the International Style modernism, much like the U.N. Headquarters by Wallace K. Harrison. Another example of International Style modernism: The Lever House.

