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The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1979-1999

The Institute of Contemporary Culture (ICC) at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents The Pritzker Architecture Prize 1979-1999, an exhibition presenting the outstanding achievements of the world’s greatest contemporary architects, which opens in the ROM’s Roloff Beny Gallery on Saturday, June 10, 2000. A travelling exhibition from The Art Institute of Chicago, it brings together original works by all past winners of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize for the first time. The first overview of contemporary architecture ever presented at the ROM, this noteworthy exhibition remains on view until October 1, 2000.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize 1979 1999 is both a survey and a celebration of the world’s most highly regarded architecture award, often described as the Nobel Prize of architecture due to its importance, method of jury selection, and monetary gift. With a lively range of over 130 architectural drawings, models, photographs, and plans, this exhibition examines the works of all the laureates over the first twenty years of the award. While the prize is awarded for an architect’s entire body of built work, the exhibition represents each honouree with a single essential project examined in detail. Seen together, these works illustrate diverse approaches to the built environment, and the documents exhibited alongside them show the various design methods that the architects used in developing their projects.

Architect Bruce Kuwabara, Partner in the acclaimed Toronto-based firm Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects, the architectural advisor to the ICC/ROM presentation of The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1979-1999, says, “This exhibition celebrates contemporary architecture as a vital part of our present, living culture. The Pritzker Prize has created a greater public awareness of buildings and inspired creativity in the architectural profession. Through this exhibition, the ROM's Institute of Contemporary Culture is helping to increase awareness in Canada of the quality of our built environment.”

The Pritzker Architecture Prize, established in 1979, is awarded annually to honour talented architects who have produced “consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.” The Prize was created by the late Jay A. Pritzker and his wife Cindy, the owners of the well known Hyatt Hotel chain, to acknowledge the art of architecture and the profound impact it could have on human behaviour. Laureates receive a $100,000 (U.S.) grant, a formal citation certificate and a bronze medallion. The procedures were modeled after the Nobel Prize (which does not honour architecture), with the final selection made by a prestigious international jury voting in secret.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1979-1999 presents the signature projects of the 22 outstanding international architects who received the award in its first 20 years, plus this year’s winner, reflecting a broad range of styles, functions and the state of the art in design and technology. The full list of prize winners is a who’s-who of current architectural practice. The buildings which have been selected to represent them in this exhibition range from famous corporate headquarters to little-known funerary structures, and from beautiful cultural buildings to impressive public projects, set in a variety of landscapes. It is fitting that almost two-thirds of the buildings examined are museums, underlining the importance of cultural institutions as patrons of cutting-edge architectural design.

This year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, announced in mid-April, is the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. The ROM presentation of the exhibition will be enriched by a new addition to the touring exhibition: curator Martha Thorne has selected the Kunsthal (exhibition centre) in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (1992), as the project representing Mr. Koolhaas’ work. The Pritzker Architecture Prize award ceremony for the year 2000 is scheduled to occur on May 29th in Jerusalem.

Many of the works featured in the exhibition are already icons of mid late 20th century design, such as the Glass House (1947-49) by Philip Johnson, the American recipient of the first Pritzker Prize in 1979, or Canadian-born Frank O. Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (1992-97), the winner in 1989. Among the many other notable winners and their projects selected for the exhibition are:
· Norman Foster (1999 prize, Britain), the most recent recipient in the exhibition, represented by the renowned recent addition to the Reichstag in Berlin;
· Richard Meier (1984 prize, U.S.A.), who designed the spectacular Getty Center in Los Angeles (1984-97);
· Aldo Rossi (1990 prize, Italy), represented by the serene Cemetery of San Cataldo (1971-84);
· Tadao Ando (1995 prize, Japan), creator of the contemplative Church of the Light in Ibaraki, Japan (1987-89);
· the two recipients who shared the 1988 prize, the distinguished Modernists Gordon Bunshaft (U.S.A.) and Oscar Niemeyer (Brazil), represented by the Lever House, New York (1947-52)and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1991-96), respectively;
· Ieoh Ming Pei (1983 prize, U.S.A.), creator of the celebrated renovations to the Grand Louvre, Paris (1983-93);
· Renzo Piano (1998 prize, Italy), architect of the stunning Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre in Noumea, New Caledonia (1991-96).

A lavishly illustrated full colour catalogue, The Pritzker Architecture Prize: The First Twenty Years, by Martha Thorne, associate curator of architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago (and the original curator of the exhibition), will be available for purchase in the ROM Shop. In the fall of 2000, in conjunction with this exhibition, a series of ticketed lectures given by famous architects will be co-presented with the University of Toronto’s School of Architecture and The Design Exchange. The details of this lecture series will be confirmed at a later date.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1979-1999 is supported by the ROM’s Institute of Contemporary Culture (ICC), a privately-funded entity within the ROM dedicated to the exploration of cultural issues in present day society, with an emphasis on contemporary Canada. Founded in 1989, it presents temporary exhibitions in the Roloff Beny Gallery which emphasize current thought in the fields of photography, design, film, the visual arts, and architecture. The ICC also organizes lectures and symposia, conducts research, and fosters the interaction of scholars, creators and the public. The noted art collector and philanthropist Bernard Ostry is the current Chair of the ICC Board.

China: Fifty Years Inside the People’s Republic, the ICC’s most recent exhibition, captured the dramatic changes in China from the 1949 Revolution to present day society, through more than 150 colour and black and white photographs by important Chinese and Western photographers. The upcoming ICC exhibition, Roberta Bondar: Passionate Vision, Intimate Portraits of Canada’s National Parks, featuring spectacular photographs by Dr. Bondar which showcase both the beauty and fragility of all 39 of Canada’s national parks, opens in November, 2000.

 

 

Issue date:
April 7, 2000

For more information:
Media Relations
Tel.: 416.586.5547
Fax: 416.586.8022
E-mail: media@rom.on.ca

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