Pritzker Prize Awarded to Thom Mayne

By Andrew Peerless in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 21, 2005 2:57PM

Chicagoist told you a while back that this year's Pritzker Prize would be awarded in Chicago, under the lattice of Frank Gehry's Millennium Park masterpiece, and now we can tell you the name of this year's recipient: L.A.-based architect Thom Mayne.

Non-architects among us now likely scratching their heads and wondering who the hell Thom Mayne is. However, the architecture and design communities know him as the founder and creative force behind legendary firm Morphosis, who - according to the Pritzker Prize press releases - work to "surpass the bounds of traditional forms and materials, while also working to carve out a territory beyond the limits of modernism and postmodernism." Yeah... whatever they said.

Archi-speak aside, Mayne and Morphosis's work is pretty damn cool. Over the past decade, the firm has blossomed from a critically-sound but project-poor idea orgy to a commercially viable creative powerhouse, with high profile commissions arising in this country and abroad. While Chicago unfortunately doesn't play host to any of his work, the Morphosis Web site offers a swirling, whirling sea of project images and glimpses of what makes his work stand out as it does.

Image courtesy of metropolismag.com