MCHAP Nominees Announced

Wiel Arets, Dean of the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and Dirk Denison, Director of the Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize (MCHAP) and Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize for Emerging Architecture (MCHAP.emerge) have announced 265 nominees for the two inaugural prizes recognizing the most distinguished works built in North and South America between January 2000 and December 2013.

“The two MCHAP biennial prizes are unique among architectural awards in that they are founded by an academic institution and will foster discourse within the Americas on Rethinking Metropolis—the new focus of IIT’s College of Architecture’s revised curriculum,” said Dean Wiel Arets. “Both prize winners, for MCHAP and the MCHAP.emerge, will receive a monetary prize, $50,000 and $25,000 USD, respectively, and have an academic appointment at the College of Architecture during the 2014/2015 academic year.”

The nominees for MCHAP and MCHAP.emerge were selected by a network of professionally diverse, international ambassadors from throughout the Americas. The MCHAP.emerge finalists were chosen by the inaugural MCHAP Jury, which includes: 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; Sarah Whiting, Dean and William Ward Watkin Professor, Rice School of Architecture, Houston; and Jury President Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture at GSAPP, Columbia University, New York.

“The founders of MCHAP assume as their mandate the furthering of the modern project in a broad sense,” said Kenneth Frampton. “The jury should evaluate the wide range of works nominated in terms of the contribution that they each make not only at the civic level but also in terms of innovative technology particularly where its impact is as much cultural as it is operationally efficient.”

To select the winner of MCHAP, the jury will travel to the sites of MCHAP finalists, in order to experience these built works first hand. The finalists and the MCHAP recipient will be announced in July. The authors of the MCHAP recipient and finalists will be celebrated at a conference held at IIT’s S. R. Crown Hall on October 22, 2014 where the jury will engage in a direct dialogue about the works as part of a continuing exploration of how architecture can improve the lives of the people who inhabit these innovative built works.

Also today, four finalists were announced for MCHAP.emerge. The recipient will be announced at a benefit dinner featuring Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago to be held at S. R. Crown Hall on May 20, 2014. On that same afternoon, the finalists will join the students and faculty of IIT’s College of Architecture for a dialogue about their nominated works and how they contribute to the college’s continuing conversation—Rethinking Metropolis.

“The City of Chicago occupies a unique place in the history of modern architecture,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “Innovators flourish in Chicago and have created some of the world’s most memorable built structures—from the ‘first’ Chicago School of the late 19th Century that invented the skyscraper to the ‘second’ Chicago School of the mid-20th Century represented by IIT’s Mies van der Rohe. Chicago embraces new thinking and is proud to be the home of MCHAP, an award that honors today’s trailblazers from North and South America who are reimagining the modern city at the start of the 21st Century.”

The four MCHAP.emerge finalists are:

Kiltro House
Talca, Pencahue, Chile
Juan Pablo Corvalan

Maximilian’s Schell
Los Angeles, California, USA
Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues

OMS Stage
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
5468796 Architecture

Poli House
Tome, Bio-Bio Region, Chile
Pezo von Ellrichshausen

“The awarding of the ‘Americas Prizes’ is not the end, but the beginning of a dialogue,” said MCHAP Director Dirk Denison, “that will ensue amongst designers, scholars, and urban thinkers, and it is in this light that our efforts will be focused on building a bridge between academia, professional practice and our world of neighborhoods.”

For more information about MCHAP and MCHAP.emerge, their purpose, process and timeline, visit www.mchap.org.