Martha Thorne, Pritzker Prize Director, to Present Lecture on Jan. 28 in Little Rock

Photo Submitted

Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize

Martha Thorne will present a lecture titled “Starchitects, Prizes and the Changing Face of Architecture” on Tuesday, Jan. 28, at the Arkansas Arts Center, 501 E. 9th St., in Little Rock. The lecture will begin at 6 p.m. in the center’s Lecture Hall, following a 5:30 p.m. reception.

This lecture is part of the Architecture and Design Network’s 2013-2014 Art of Architecture lecture series.

Thorne is executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and associate dean for external affairs at the IE School of Architecture and Design, in Madrid, Spain. She served as an associate curator of the Department of Architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1996 to 2005, the year she left to assume the directorship of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, headquartered in Madrid, Spain. Established in 1979 by Jay and Cindy Pritzker and underwritten by the Hyatt Foundation, the award was conceived as a meaningful prize that would stimulate public awareness and inspire greater creativity within the profession of architecture. Recipients of the annual award, often called the “Nobel of architecture,” are selected by an international jury committed to the art of architecture and its social responsibility. Each year’s winner receives a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion.

Lord Peter Palumbo of England, a developer and art collector, is the current jury chair for the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Toyo Ito of Japan, selected by a jury of seven (which included Thorne) as the 2013 Pritzker laureate, was presented his award by Tom Pritzker, Jay Pritzker’s son. Philip Johnson (1979), Richard Meier (1984), Frank Gehry (1989) and Robert Venturi (1991) are among earlier Pritzker laureates. Zaha Hadid is the only woman to receive the prestigious award in the 34 years since its inception; she won hers in 2004.

Thorne, who earned a Master of Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, is especially interested in contemporary architecture, globalization and innovative methods of teaching architecture. She facilitated the architect selection process for the Barnes Foundation, which subsequently chose architects Billie Tsien and Tod Williams to design its new museum in Philadelphia. Thorne is co-author of two books, Masterpieces of Chicago Architecture and Skyscrapers: The New Millennium. She currently serves on the jury that awards the international prize arcVision to women who demonstrate excellence and social responsibility in architecture.

The 2013-14 Art of Architecture lecture series is sponsored by the Architecture and Design Network, a non-profit organization, with support from the Central Arkansas Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the Arkansas Arts Center and the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact ardenetwork@icloud.com.