Inaugural MCHAP Awards Announced

Kenneth Frampton, MCHAP (Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize) Jury President, announced the inaugural winners of MCHAP2000-2008 and MCHAP2009-2013 at a benefit award dinner honoring the seven finalists held at S. R. Crown Hall on the campus of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago last night. More than 300 people attended the ceremony, including representatives of the finalists’ architects and clients and featuring Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The authors of the two winning projects honoring the best built works in the Americas will each be recognized with the MCHAP Award, the MCHAP Chair at IIT College of Architecture for the following academic year and funding of $50,000 USD, in support of research and a publication related to the theme of ‘Rethinking Metropolis.’

Iberê Camargo Foundation in Porto Alegre, Brazil, by Álvaro Siza was named MCHAP2000-2008 winner. Representing the project at the award benefit dinner were architects Álvaro Siza of Álvaro Siza Arquitecto and Jose Luiz Canal.

1111 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, Florida, USA by Herzog & de Meuron was named MCHAP2009-2013 winner. Representing the project at the award benefit dinner were architects Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger and Jason Frantzen of Herzog & de Meuron as well as clients Robert Wennett and Jeff Weinstein of UIA Management.

MCHAP was established under Wiel Arets, Dean of the College of Architecture at IIT, and was launched in February 2014 with Phyllis Lambert at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, and Dirk Denison, MCHAP Director and Professor in the College of Architecture at IIT.

The finalists, in addition to 1111 Lincoln Road and Iberê Camargo Foundation, include:

• Altamira Residential Building in Rosario, Argentina, by Rafael Iglesia Arquitectura

• Capilla del Retiro in Auco, Los Andes, Chile, by Undurraga Deves Arquitectos

• Mestizo Restaurant in Santiago, Chile, by Smiljan Radic Studio

• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Bloch Building in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. by Steven Holl Architects

• Seattle Central Library, in Seattle, Washington, U.S. by OMA / LMN

MCHAP was created as part of Dean Arets’ strategy for the College of Architecture at IIT emphasizing progressive research and a new curriculum. It was announced in NOWNESS March 2013. Nominees for both MCHAP and MCHAP.emerge were chosen by 71 professionally diverse, international ambassadors from throughout the Americas.

The winners of MCHAP and MCHAP.emerge were chosen by the MCHAP Jury which includes: Jury President Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture at GSAPP, Columbia University, New York; Wiel Arets, Dean of the College of Architecture and Rowe Family College of Architecture Dean Endowed Chair at IIT, Chicago; Jorge Francisco Liernur, Architect, Professor at Torcuato Di Tella University, and Researcher of Argentina’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Investigation, Buenos Aires; Dominique Perrault, Founding Principal, Dominique Perrault Architecture, Paris and Professor at EPFL, Lausanne; and Sarah Whiting, Dean and William Ward Watkin Professor, Rice School of Architecture, Houston.